Here’s a look at 20 innovative companies that are driving the evolution of cloud software across enterprise applications, business process management, and data platforms and analytics.
Cloud computing has evolved in recent years from a way for businesses to expand the capacity and functionality of their IT operations to become the core component of those operations. For several years now Gartner has been forecasting that 2025 will be the first year that spending for cloud computing exceeds spending for traditional IT.
And that means developers of cloud software, everything from operational ERP and CRM applications to big data platforms and analytics tools to workflow management software, are playing an increasingly important role in the channel.
As part of CRN’s 100 Coolest Cloud Computing Companies of 2025, here’s a look at 20 innovative software companies, from startups to some of the industry’s biggest software providers, that are driving the evolution of cloud software today.
Agiloft
Eric Laughlin
CEO
Agiloft provides cloud-based contract life-cycle management software for optimizing contract processes including creating, negotiating and executing contracts. The Agiloft Data-First Agreement Platform taps into contract data across an organization, including contract content, performance metrics, process details and decision support data, to connect contractual commitments to real business outcomes.
Cloudera
Charles Sansbury
CEO
The popular Cloudera Data Platform works with on-premises and cloud-stored data to support a range of data management and analytics tasks, including AI, data engineering, data warehouse, data streaming, data hubs and operational databases. A November deal to acquire Octopai’s data lineage and catalog platform will boost Cloudera’s metadata management and data governance capabilities.
Confluent
Jay Kreps
Co-Founder, CEO
Confluent’s data streaming platform makes it possible to stream, connect, process and govern data “in motion”—a critical capability as organizations increasingly work with data on a real-time basis. Confluent Tableflow, launched in 2024, makes it easier to unite operational and analytical data estates on Confluent Cloud. Also in 2024, the company expanded its channel presence with new programs for OEMs and systems integrators.
Couchbase
Matt Cain
Chair, President, CEO
Couchbase offers its Capella Database-as-a-Service platform—and the Couchbase NoSQL database server that Capella is based on—for developing high-performance interactive applications. In September Couchbase boosted the combined operational and analytical capabilities of Capella with expanded columnar and vector search functionality. And in December the company added AI capabilities to Capella for developing agentic AI applications.
Cribl
Clint Sharp
Co-Founder, CEO
Cribl describes its data observability platform as “the data engine for IT and security” with its ability to search, collect, process, route and store telemetry data from cloud and on-premises IT systems. Product launches in 2024 included Cribl Lake for data lake storage and the Cribl Copilot AI-powered guide for managing IT and security data. Cribl raised $319 million in Series E funding in August.
Databricks
But Ghodsi
Co-Founder, CEO
Databricks is one of the IT industry’s fastest-growing companies as customers rapidly adopt its flagship Databricks Data Intelligence Platform for a broad range of data lake, data analytics and AI tasks. In December Databricks stunned the industry with a $10 billion funding round—boosting the company’s value to $62 billion—while also reporting 60 percent year-over-year growth in recent quarters and an annual revenue run rate surpassing $3 billion.
Dbt Labs
Tristan Handy
Founder, CEO
Dbt Labs develops a data transformation framework and workflow tool used by data analysts and data engineers to effectively execute SQL data transformation tasks and test and document data in cloud data warehouses. The company’s dbt Cloud platform, with its embedded dbt Copilot AI engine, has enjoyed significant market momentum as a control plane for enterprise analytics operations.
EDB
Kevin Dallas
CEO
EDB is a longtime player in the database market with its Postgres-based, Oracle-compatible database. But in 2024 the company made a quantum leap with the debut of EDB Postgres AI, a next-generation data platform for cloud, appliance and on-premises deployments with unified capabilities that can process transactional, analytical and AI workloads.
Genesys
Tony Bates
Chairman, CEO
Genesys, a provider of customer experience software, is focused on the cloud with its Genesys Cloud “experience orchestration” platform and products such as Genesys Cloud CX for contact centers and Genesys Cloud EX for employee experiences. Last year the company introduced Gensys Copilot and expanded the AI powers of Genesys Cloud with new Virtual Agent, Empathy Detection and Modern Agent Workspace capabilities.
Intermedia Cloud Communications
Michael Gold
Chairman, CEO
Intermedia Cloud Communications is a longtime channel heavyweight with its popular UCaaS platform for business email, chat, voice, videoconferencing, SMS and file sharing and business VoIP, Microsoft 365, contact center and security services. Intermedia Unite AI Assistant, built into the company’s Unite mobile and desktop applications interface, uses generative AI to help users more easily access information and automate repetitive tasks.
MongoDB
Dev Ittycheria
President, CEO
MongoDB has seen demand for its NoSQL, document-oriented database, including the MongoDB Atlas cloud database and development platform, surge to meet the needs of AI applications for huge volumes of unstructured data. In May 2024 the company launched the MongoDB AI Applications Program, a complete technology stack, services and other resources for developing and deploying advanced generative AI applications.
Pinecone
Or Liberty
CEO
Vector databases are a foundational data management tool for generative AI systems, and Pinecone has emerged as a leader in the vector database space. The Pinecone Vector Database can rapidly store, index and retrieve data—including unstructured text and images—for such GenAI applications as natural language processing and recommendation systems. The company launched a serverless edition of its database in early 2024.
Qlik
Michael Capone
CEO
Qlik holds a leadership position in the business intelligence and data visualization space with its Qlik Sense and Qlik Cloud Analytics offerings. More recently the company has been expanding its data management technology portfolio across AI and machine learning; data integration movement and quality; and governance— especially with its May 2023 acquisition of Talend.
Salesforce
Marc Benioff
Co-Founder, Chair, CEO
Cloud application pioneer Salesforce has continued its rapid growth, possibly reaching $38 billion revenue in fiscal 2025, with its sales, customer service, marketing automation, e-commerce and analytics software. Salesforce has been aggressively building AI capabilities into its portfolio: In December the company debuted Agentforce 2.0, a new release of its digital labor platform for building and deploying AI agents for various business functions.
SAP
Christian Klein
CEO
SAP’s business software, including its flagship ERP applications, is the operational backbone for many of the world’s largest companies. SAP has encouraged customers to migrate from on-premises software to the cloud through the Rise with SAP and Grow with SAP programs. The company has been infusing AI technology into a broad swath of its cloud software, leveraging its Joule generative AI copilot and SAP AI Core offerings.
ServiceNow
Bill McDermott
Chairman, CEO
ServiceNow’s AI-driven, cloud-based platform automates and manages business processes and workflows, helping businesses manage their digital operations and coordinate activities, functions and data throughout the organization. The company’s Workflow Data Fabric, introduced in October, provides workflows and AI agents with access to unified business and technology data across an enterprise.
Snowflake
Sridhar Ramaswamy
CEO
With its AI Data Cloud, Snowflake is a leading data management services provider for an expanding range of data-centric operations, including analytics, AI and machine learning, data warehouse and data lake systems, collaboration, operational applications and packaged data sales. In November Snowflake boosted its AI service capabilities with a deal to provide Anthropic’s Claude AI models through Snowflake Cortex AI.
SugarCRM
David Roberts
CEO
Competing in the crowded CRM application arena is a challenge. But SugarCRM, which targets high-growth midmarket companies, successfully does so with its applications for sales force automation, sales engagement, marketing campaigns, customer support and collaboration. SugarCRM added revenue intelligence capabilities to its portfolio with the June acquisition of Sales-i and in July debuted generative AI functionality to boost productivity and customer intelligence.
ThoughtSpot
Ketan Karkhanis
CEO
Declaring that “AI is the new BI,” ThoughtSpot has established itself as a leader in the data analytics space with its AI-powered ThoughtSpot Analytics platform that allows a broad range of users to generate actionable insight through its natural language search capabilities. In November the company added Spotter, an agentic AI analyst tool, to its offerings.
Workday
Carl Eschenbach
CEO
Workday’s software combines human resources, financial management and planning applications into an integrated platform that helps business and organizations manage their most important assets—their people and their money. In September Workday launched Illuminate, the company’s new AI technology that taps into the data generated by Workday applications to improve decision- making and streamline business processes.
