Palantir, the controversial analytics and data mining company, still relies heavily on its U.S. government revenue contracts despite its public statements that it was deepening in more corporate clients, according to screenshots of the company’s S-1 submission that was purchased by TechCrunch. The financial, which the New York Times has also shown, showing that Palantir has not once turned a profit since its inception in 2003.
Add to that the news that it’s leaving Silicon Valley because of “increasing intolerance and monoculture,” and you end up with an image of a company that does not have much growth potential. It is now clear that Palantir is dependent on the current administration in Washington to maintain its existing revenue stream.
Palantir filed for confidentiality last month for an IPO, but has not yet announced when it will go public. The S-1 filing shows that Palantir had revenue of $ 742.5 million in 2019, a 25 percent increase from the same period a year earlier. But that was not enough to cover expenses; the company had a net loss of $ 580 million, according to the The time. It has a private valuation of $ 20 billion, and has raised more than $ 3 billion in funding. That net loss is partly explained by how much money Palantir burns on marketing – the company spent $ 450 million on marketing in two years.
As for the increase in revenue, $ 102 million came from existing customers of Palantir, according to TechCrunchhis analysis. Palantir spent $ 345.5 million last year working with the U.S. government, and $ 397 million from commercial clients, according to the The time.
Palantir is best known for his work with the U.S. government, which has a contract with the military to develop a new intelligence intelligence platform worth an estimated $ 823 million. It has also worked in the past with US Customs and Border Protection to track immigrants and travelers at the border, and in 2018 it was found secretly testing its predictive police software in New Orleans.
More recently, Palantir was discovered as building a piece of equipment for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to track the spread of the coronavirus. It remains unclear how that data will be used and collected.
Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel supported President Trump’s 2016 election, and he has reportedly used his status as a member of Facebook’s board to push for policies that help the president, especially when it comes to overseeing politics. ads on the platform. At first, Thiel supported the president’s election, but last month he said he was distancing himself from Trump.
The last 12 months have been a difficult time for unicorns; the much-anticipated WeWork IPO flopped and was withdrawn, resulting in the departure of co-founder Adam Neumann (with a $ 1.7 billion payout) and accusation to investor SoftBank for breach of contract. Short-term rental platform Airbnb confidentially filed for an IPO last week, with the Wall Street Journal the company values at about half of its peak value of 2017. That it is difficult to predict who in 2020 will try to buy into a company known for its secrecy and technology with questionable privacy controls. Especially since these documents suggest that Palantir is falling short of the hype.
