Planet Labs PBC published its strategy for the next 10 years on July 20, 2022. At the same time, the company summarized its achievements of the first 10 years. The strategy publication can be read here:
The company states that its first mission was to image the entire world every day to make changes on Earth visible. “At the start of our first decade, we set a very clear mission: to image the whole world every day, making change visible, accessible and actionable”. The company has 200 satellites that image and scan the Earth from every corner every day. Therefore, the company states that the mission of the first decade has now been completed. The company collects a vast amount of data every day, and in its strategy publication, they state that they also had to create a new business model. Now they process 4 million images every day, deliver data to their customers as a subscription service, and achieve over 100 million in annual revenue.
Now the company tells us all that “if you had access to imagery of the whole planet every day, what would you do with that data? What problems would you solve, what exploration would you do?” The company aims to activate businesses, governments, the third sector, etc., to develop applications for utilizing this vast amount of data collected by Planet. ”Just as Google indexed the Internet and made it searchable, Planet is indexing change on Earth to make it discoverable and actionable.” “Meanwhile, we’ll continue to innovate in space – it’s in Planet’s DNA to do so! – to ensure our users are equipped with the best data, constantly deploying new sensors in space to increase the frequency, resolution, and quality of the data that powers our software and tools. This will leverage technology and cost curves from other industries, such as AI and edge compute, and will continue to bring cost-performance advances.” “As we enter our second decade, our North Star is this: to build an Earth data platform that powers action.”
So, Planet is a company that builds and provides a data platform to which applications can connect.
Planet went public via a SPAC in December 2021. So, its journey on the stock market is short. Among the backers of the IPO was Google. Here are some additional perspectives that interest me about this company:
- Will Marshall, co-founder of the company, continues as CEO
- The megatrend is the mother of all megatrends - saving life on Earth. If you break it down, the megatrends include climate change, security challenges, refugees, deforestation, food supply, logistics, etc.
- Indexing Earth data and making it available to everyone - this has not been done before
Everyone hopes for returns on their investments. For Planet, we are in the early stages, and the business model is constantly evolving. In my opinion, Planet is a growth company - or at least that’s the angle from which I view the company. The future will show what the company can achieve from an investor’s perspective.





