Planet Labs

Planet Labs PBC
Formerly
  • Cosmogia, Inc.
  • Planet Labs, Inc.
Company typePublic
NYSE: PL
Industry
FoundedDecember 29, 2010; 13 years ago (2010-12-29)[1]
Founder
[1]
Headquarters
San Francisco, California
,
United States
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
[1][2]
Products"Dove", "RapidEye", and "SkySat" imaging satellites
ServicesSatellite-based Earth imaging and analytics
Revenue
  • Increase US$191.3M (2022)
Number of employees
1090(as of 11 January 2023)[3]
Websiteplanet.com

Planet Labs PBC (formerly Planet Labs, Inc. and Cosmogia, Inc.) is a publicly trading American Earth imaging company based in San Francisco, California.[1][4] Their goal is to image the entirety of the Earth daily to monitor changes and pinpoint trends.[5]

The company designs and manufactures 3U-CubeSat miniature satellites called Doves that are then delivered into orbit as secondary payloads on other rocket launch missions. Each Dove is equipped with a high-powered telescope and camera programmed to capture different swaths of Earth.[6] Each Dove Earth observation satellite continuously scans Earth, sending data once it passes over a ground station, by means of a frame image sensor.[7]

The images gathered by Doves, which can be accessed online and some of which are available under an open data access policy,[8] provide up-to-date information relevant to climate monitoring, crop yield prediction, urban planning, and disaster response.[1] With acquisition of BlackBridge in July 2015, Planet Labs had 87 Dove and 5 RapidEye satellites launched into orbit.[9] In 2017, Planet launched an additional 88 Dove satellites, and Google sold its subsidiary Terra Bella and its SkySat satellite constellation to Planet Labs.[10][11][12] By September 2018, the company had launched nearly 300 satellites, 150 of which are active.[13] In 2020, Planet Labs launched six additional high-resolution SkySats, SkySats 16–21, and 35 Dove satellites.[14]

Through a deal funded by Norway's Climate and Forests Initiative (NICFI), Planet and its partners Airbus and KSAT are providing access to high-resolution basemaps of 64 tropical countries to help combat deforestation.[15] It also provides data to FAO's Framework for Ecosystem Monitoring (Ferm).[16]

Following a January 2021 launch of 48 Planet SuperDoves, the company operated a global constellation of over 200 active satellites.[17]

In July 2021 Planet Labs announced that they plan to become a public company and list on the New York Stock Exchange through a merger with the SPAC DMY Technology Group Inc IV. The deal would value Planet at US$2.8B.[18][19] The business combination was completed on December 7, 2021. Planet registered as a public benefit corporation and formally changed its name to Planet Labs PBC.[4] The stock began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on December 8, 2021. After the merger, Planet had more than $500 million in capital and about 190 satellites in orbit. The company expected it to take the next few years until they get to cashflow breakeven, funding their operations with $200 million from the aforementioned $500 million (the rest $300 million forming a "strategic warchest"). At the time of the merger, the company had over 600 customers (most customers, 90%, are annual subscriptions to Planet's data service) and it generated $113 million in revenue in 2020. At the time of the merger, Planet aimed to be profitable on an adjusted EBITDA basis by early 2025, and to grow its annual revenue to nearly $700 million by early 2026.[20]

Planet Labs has contracts to supply imagery to various agencies of the US government, including the FAS, NOAA, Oak Ridge, Sandia, the Bureau of Reclamation, and NASA.[21]

  1. ^ a b c d e "Planet Labs website". Planet.co. Retrieved September 23, 2015.
  2. ^ "Planet Labs Website". Planet.com. Retrieved March 23, 2018.
  3. ^ "Planet Labs Website". Retrieved January 11, 2023.
  4. ^ a b "Planet Announces Closing of Business Combination with dMY Technology Group, Inc. IV". Investors.Planet.com. December 7, 2021.
  5. ^ "Company". Planet. May 7, 2018. Retrieved March 7, 2019.
  6. ^ "The Tiny Satellites Ushering in the New Space Revolution". Bloomberg.com. June 29, 2017. Retrieved March 20, 2018.
  7. ^ PLANET IMAGERY PRODUCT SPECIFICATION: PLANETSCOPE & RAPIDEYE
  8. ^ "Planet Explorer". Planet.com. Retrieved March 23, 2018.
  9. ^ Tepper, Fitz (July 15, 2015). "Satellite Maker Planet Labs Acquires BlackBridge's Geospatial Business". TechCrunch.com. Retrieved September 28, 2015.
  10. ^ "Google sells satellite imaging business Terra Bella to Planet Labs". Reuters. February 3, 2017. Retrieved February 9, 2017.
  11. ^ "Planet to Acquire Terra Bella from Google, Sign Multi-Year Data Contract" (Press release). Planet Labs. February 3, 2017.
  12. ^ Gordon, Amy (February 4, 2017). "Google Sells Satellite Imaging Business Terra Bella To Planet". Tech Times. Retrieved May 22, 2018.
  13. ^ Cite error: The named reference tc20180914 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  14. ^ "Planet's satellites aim for still sharper view of Earth". BBC News. June 9, 2020. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
  15. ^ "Norway funds satellite map of world's tropical forests". BBC News. October 22, 2020. Retrieved March 12, 2021.
  16. ^ "The space tech helping to tackle deforestation". BBC News. July 31, 2022. Retrieved August 2, 2022.
  17. ^ Amos, Jonathan (January 24, 2021). "SpaceX: World record number of satellites launched". BBC News. Retrieved March 12, 2021.
  18. ^ Sheetz, Michael (July 7, 2021). "Satellite imagery company Planet Labs is going public, backed by Google, BlackRock and Marc Benioff". CNBC. Retrieved October 13, 2021.
  19. ^ "Planet Investor Presentation" (PDF). Planet Labs Investor Relations.
  20. ^ Sheetz, Michael (December 8, 2021). "Satellite imagery company Planet goes public, with $300 million 'war chest' after SPAC deal". CNBC.com. Retrieved December 8, 2021.
  21. ^ "National Security Space: Overview of Contracts for Commercial Satellite Imagery" (PDF). US Government Accounting Office. General Accounting Office. December 8, 2022. Retrieved December 8, 2022.