Palantir's leaked IPO paperwork gives a look into its secretive business
Paging Carrie Mathison... We're all "people familiar with the matter" (#PFWTM) now that Palantir's IPO paperwork has been leaked. That's slightly ironic, since Palantir is known for its super-secretive ways and its ties to intelligence agencies.
- At a high level, Palantir is a software company that collects and synthesizes data for big clients. That data could allow a bank to spot the movement of criminal money, or help a government agency thwart a terrorist attack.
- Palantir filed to go public back in July, 17 years after its founding. It filed its IPO paperwork confidentially (of course), which means we didn't get to check out its financials. Until now...
I spy a mole... Palantir's S-1 filing got leaked by a shareholder to TechCrunch. A few numbers stood out to us from the screenshotted-leakage:
- $5.6M: Palantir's massive average revenue per customer. That's impressive, but a little less impressive when you consider...
- 125: Palantir's number of customers could barely fill the theater at a Mission Impossible screening.
- $742M: Palantir's sales for 2019, anticlimactically less than the ~$1B that has been reported for years.
Palantir has big eggs in a small basket... Its growth is highly dependent on a few massive players, which is risky. Losing even a few clients could hurt big. Out of Palantir's 125 customers, the top 3 make up over 30% of its sales. Over 90% of its sales growth comes from existing customers, the majority of which are government clients. Palantir's good at crunching data — not so good at crunching profit. It reported a $580M net loss for 2019, which was almost the same as 2018's.