AI runs on data, but reliable intelligence runs on context. The acquisition of Select Star, a metadata governance platform founded by Korean-born entrepreneur Shinji Kim, by Snowflake, one of the world’s most influential cloud data companies, marks a defining moment in how enterprises structure and trust their data for AI-driven operations worldwide.

Snowflake Acquires Select Star to Advance Global AI Data Intelligence

U.S. cloud-based data platform Snowflake has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Select Star, the Silicon Valley–based platform known for automating metadata context and data lineage for enterprises.

The move was announced in November 2025, with Snowflake confirming that Select Star’s technology and team — including founder and CEO Shinji Kim — will join the company to strengthen its Horizon Catalog product line. The integration will extend Snowflake’s reach beyond its own data ecosystem, linking metadata from external systems such as PostgreSQL, MySQL, Tableau, Power BI, dbt, and Airflow.

Through this acquisition, Snowflake aims to unify enterprise data governance and enhance AI reliability by embedding Select Star’s automated metadata mapping into its flagship Horizon Catalog, which supports its agentic AI tools Snowflake Intelligence and Cortex Code.

Select Star’s Core Vision: Making Data Context Intelligent

Founded in 2020 and headquartered in San Francisco, Select Star helps organizations manage, trace, and understand their data at scale through an automated metadata system. The platform catalogs datasets, maps lineage, and surfaces relationships between data sources and usage patterns — a process that makes enterprise data searchable, explainable, and auditable for AI.

As CEO Shinji Kim noted, the company’s mission has always been to “make data easier to find, understand, and use.” Her leadership — backed by experience at Akamai, Deloitte, and as a former founder whose first startup was acquired — shaped Select Star into a bridge between data engineering and business analytics.

Under her direction, Select Star developed its MCP (Model Context Protocol) Server, powering advanced AI discovery and retrieval functions across industries such as technology, finance, and logistics.

The company’s inclusion in the AWS Marketplace AI Agents and Tools category earlier this year further reinforced its role as a key player in modern AI data infrastructure.

Select Star CEO on Metadata as the Foundation of Trust

In an official statement, Snowflake described Select Star’s platform as a “natural fit for Horizon Catalog,” citing its value in extending unified context and governance “for AI over all data.”

At the same time, Select Star CEO Shinji Kim wrote in her announcement,

“A model or agent can only perform as well as the context it has. Without knowing where data originates, how it has been shaped, or which teams depend on it, AI cannot produce reliable results. The foundation of trustworthy AI is trustworthy metadata.”

This principle aligns with Snowflake’s long-term strategy to build agentic AI systems capable of reasoning about enterprise data with traceability and confidence — turning metadata into the new layer of digital infrastructure.

Snowflake’s Acquired Select Star, But What Does It Mean for Korea’s Global AI Footprint?

While Select Star operates in the U.S., its Korean-born founder and deep-tech roots highlight an important evolution in Korea’s global startup influence. It reflects how Korean engineering talent and product vision are expanding beyond domestic borders, shaping enterprise technologies that anchor the global AI infrastructure layer.

Meanwhile, for Korea’s startup ecosystem, this milestone underscores the growing maturity of founders who build internationally relevant platforms while staying connected to Korea’s innovation network.

This reflects the kind of global mindset seen among Korean founders who have emerged through government-backed programs like TIPS and K-Startup Grand Challenge— initiatives that nurture globally oriented innovation from the early stage.

As Korean policymakers debate how to balance data protection laws and AI innovation, Select Star’s success provides a real-world example: privacy-conscious governance and scalable AI innovation are not mutually exclusive — they are structurally dependent on trustworthy metadata systems.

Metadata, Trust, and the Next Stage of AI Governance

The acquisition of Select Star signals a deeper shift in how global enterprises, and by extension the Korean tech ecosystem, perceive AI data readiness. Trust is no longer about ownership alone — it is about contextual integrity.

For Korea’s emerging AI startups, this case highlights an attainable trajectory: building technology that addresses universal infrastructure challenges while maintaining the precision and reliability that Korean engineering is known for.

As AI becomes embedded in every business process, the path paved by Select Star and Shinji Kim points toward a future where metadata governance defines the boundary between experimental AI and enterprise-grade intelligence.

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