Planet Labs ($PL) Stock Hub 2026: the January Fiscal Year, a $906 Million Backlog and the $1.5 Billion Shelf

01 Next scheduled event: second quarter fiscal 2027 results, date not yet confirmed by the company

This is the first thing to get right about Planet, because it is the thing most often got wrong. Planet’s fiscal year ends on January 31. The year the company calls fiscal 2026 ran from February 1, 2025 to January 31, 2026. The year now in progress, fiscal 2027, ends on January 31, 2027. That means the second quarter of fiscal 2027 covers May, June and July 2026, and it closed on July 31, 2026 — four days before this page was last updated.

As of August 4, 2026, Planet has not published a press release announcing the date of that report, and no dated entry for it appears on the investor relations events calendar. Third-party earnings calendars carry September 14, 2026 as an expected date, after the market close. That figure is an estimate compiled by data vendors, it is not a company statement, and it should be treated as provisional until Planet issues its own announcement.

What the pattern says. A year ago the equivalent quarter, the second quarter of fiscal 2026, was reported on Monday, September 8, 2025, and the date announcement went out on August 7, 2025 — roughly a month ahead. The two most recent reports, the fiscal 2026 full-year release on March 19, 2026 and the first quarter fiscal 2027 release on June 4, 2026, both carried a conference call at 5:00 p.m. ET on the same day as the release, with a listen-only webcast on the investor site and a separate registration link for dial-in access. Both releases were accompanied by a supplemental presentation posted to the investor relations page. On that pattern, an announcement naming the date would be expected in the first half of August 2026.

Direct links: Planet investor news feed · events and presentations calendar · investor relations landing page and webcast · Planet Form 8-K filings on EDGAR.

02 Executive summary

Planet operates the largest fleet of Earth-imaging satellites in commercial service and sells access to what they see, mostly as multi-year subscriptions. For most of its listed life the argument against the company was that the data was impressive and the economics were not. Fiscal 2026 answered part of that: revenue grew 26% to a record $307.7 million, adjusted EBITDA turned positive for a full year for the first time at $15.5 million, and free cash flow came in at $52.9 million.

The first quarter of fiscal 2027 then accelerated the top line rather than the profitability. Revenue rose 42% year on year to a record $94.2 million, backlog passed $906 million, and cash and short-term investments reached $730.8 million. Adjusted EBITDA, however, went from a $1.2 million profit a year earlier to a $1.0 million loss, and free cash flow was negative $2.5 million. Management raised the full-year revenue and margin guidance on the same day, and simultaneously put in place an at-the-market equity program of up to $1.5 billion.

The share price reaction to that combination was violent. The stock closed at $43.53 on June 4, 2026, the day of the results, and at $32.22 on June 5 — a fall of about 26% in a single session. From the closing peak of $51.40 on May 28, 2026 to the August 3 close of $21.53, the decline is about 58%. Over one year the same stock is still up more than 240%.

Three things are worth keeping apart when reading anything written about this company, because they get blended constantly. There is revenue already contracted and sitting in remaining performance obligations. There is backlog, which is a wider figure that includes contract value a government customer can cancel for convenience and orders where funding has not been appropriated. And there is everything announced without a number attached — framework selections, indefinite-delivery vehicles, research partnerships and launch agreements. Planet has genuine content in all three columns, and the third column has been the loudest one in 2026.

03 Market Data And Peer Comparison

Price and performance figures below are based on the completed session of Friday, August 7, 2026. Float, ownership, short interest, average volume and the consensus target are from Finviz, pulled on the same date. Company financial figures come from SEC filings and company releases, each carrying its own reference date.

Peer comparison, all figures at the August 7, 2026 close

The performance columns tell the story better than any single number: up 281.66% over one year and up 21.35% year to date, which locates almost all of the re-rating in the second half of 2025 following the German and Swedish satellite services contracts. What has happened in 2026 is a drawdown inside a much larger move, not a reversal of it.

On analyst coverage the honest position is a narrow one. The consensus target above is a Finviz aggregate of third-party estimates pulled on August 7, 2026. Individual houses, ratings and note dates were not verified for this update, so no coverage table is presented. A consensus figure without named notes behind it is a market-data point, not research, and it is neither a company figure nor a Merlintrader forecast.

04 Verified developments up to August 4, 2026

Planet’s fiscal quarter ended. Nothing has been reported from it. The measuring stick set on June 4 is revenue of $102 million to $107 million, non-GAAP gross margin of 52% to 55% and adjusted EBITDA of $0 to $5 million.

Ashley Johnson, President and Chief Financial Officer, reported the sale of 110,028 shares for about $2.43 million. The filing states the transaction was executed under a Rule 10b5-1 trading plan adopted on April 23, 2026.

Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder Will Marshall reported the sale of 200,000 shares for about $5.18 million at prices between $25.33 and $27.17, under a Rule 10b5-1 plan adopted on July 12, 2025. Co-founder Robert Schingler Jr. reported 89,593 shares for about $2.32 million under a plan adopted on July 14, 2025.

Shareholders re-elected Vijaya Gadde, General John W. Raymond and Scott Reese as Class II directors for three-year terms, ratified KPMG LLP as auditor for the fiscal year ending January 31, 2027, and approved executive compensation on an advisory basis. The vote count is a reminder of how the share classes work: 332,899,400 Class A shares carrying one vote each and 23,493,796 Class B shares carrying twenty votes each were entitled to vote, and the 278,499,924 shares represented at the meeting cast 724,882,048 votes.

Planet announced the successful launch of Pelican-11, the second technology demonstration satellite for the second generation of the Pelican fleet, aboard the SpaceX Transporter-17 rideshare mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base. Initial contact was made and commissioning began. Generation 1 Pelicans capture up to 50 centimeter class imagery; Generation 2 are designed for up to 30 centimeter class. The company stated explicitly that Pelican-11 is not anticipated to produce commercially available data.

Planet Labs Germany and Isar Aerospace announced a strategic launch agreement under which Isar will launch one of Planet’s next-generation Pelican satellites on its Spectrum vehicle from Andoya Space, scheduled as early as late 2026, with additional satellites planned for future launches and options for further flights. The satellite is to be assembled in Planet’s forthcoming Berlin manufacturing facility, which the companies describe as doubling next-generation Pelican production capacity, with up to 70 new employees added to the roughly 150 already in Berlin. No contract value was disclosed by either party, and Spectrum is a vehicle that has not yet reached orbit.

Planet filed an automatic shelf registration statement and a prospectus supplement covering an equity distribution agreement for the sale of Class A common stock with an aggregate offering price of up to $1,500,000,000, through a syndicate of sales agents that also allows for range forward sale agreements. The prospectus supplement records the last reported sale price on June 4, 2026 as $43.53. The stock closed the following session at $32.22, a fall of about 26%.

Record revenue of $94.2 million, up 42% year on year. Backlog above $906 million, up 72%. Remaining performance obligations of $816.0 million, up 81%. Cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments of $730.8 million. Adjusted EBITDA of negative $1.0 million. Full-year fiscal 2027 revenue guidance raised to $425 million to $441 million from $415 million to $440 million, and non-GAAP gross margin guidance raised to 52% to 54% from 50% to 52%.

Planet Labs Federal was awarded an Option Year 1 extension under the Luno B indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract for Advanced Analytics for Maritime Operations and Reconnaissance, described in the earnings release as a one-year, $21.9 million extension and in the standalone announcement as a $22 million extension. A separate new award covers the Global Monitoring Service for crisis response. Luno B is an IDIQ vehicle: the option exercised is the funded part, the vehicle itself is a ceiling.

Planet launched three additional Pelican satellites on a SpaceX vehicle, taking the number of high-resolution Pelicans on orbit to nine. One of them was the Swedish Armed Forces’ first sovereign reconnaissance satellite, launched just over four months after the contract was signed.

Planet completed the redemption of the public warrants issued in the 2021 business combination. During the quarter ended April 30, 2026 it issued 9,374,075 shares from warrant exercises at $11.50, producing $107.8 million of gross proceeds. Only 71,310 warrants went unexercised and were redeemed at $0.01 each. As of April 30, 2026 there were no public or private placement warrants outstanding, which also means the quarterly warrant revaluation that has distorted the reported net loss for two years will not recur.

Record annual revenue of $307.7 million, up 26%. First full fiscal year of positive adjusted EBITDA at $15.5 million and positive free cash flow at $52.9 million. Remaining performance obligations of $852.4 million, up 106%. Backlog above $900 million, up 79%. Cash and short-term investments of $640.1 million.

A multi-year low nine-figure commercial agreement under which Planet builds and operates a constellation of high-resolution Pelicans that Sweden will own, while Planet retains licensing rights over certain imagery from those satellites for its own customers. The announcement recorded that Planet had signed over half a billion dollars across three satellite services contracts in twelve months, supporting Japan via JSAT and in collaboration with Germany. It also introduced the forthcoming Owl constellation, designed for near-daily one-meter class imagery.

Planet issued $460.0 million of 0.50% convertible senior notes due October 15, 2030, with an initial conversion price of approximately $11.95 per share and capped call transactions costing $39.6 million that raise the effective cap to $18.04. That conversion price is far below the current share price, which is why the notes matter to the share count.

Planet Labs Germany announced a multi-year €240 million agreement funded by the German government, providing dedicated capacity and direct downlink services on Pelican satellites over specific European regions, plus access to PlanetScope and SkySat data and AI-enabled situational and maritime domain awareness solutions. Revenue recognition was expected to begin in January 2026 and to ramp over several years. This is the single largest disclosed contract value in the company’s history.

05 The numbers, in five charts

Every bar below is drawn from a figure Planet has reported in an SEC filing or a press release. Percentages are calculated against the largest value shown in each chart.

Quarterly revenue, fiscal 2026 through the fiscal 2027 second quarter guidance

Source: Planet quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and Form 10-K (revenue figures $66.265M, $73.386M, $81.254M, $86.822M and $94.150M) and the June 4, 2026 guidance range of $102M to $107M for the quarter ended July 31, 2026. Bars are scaled to $107 million, the top of the guidance range. Five consecutive quarterly records; the guidance midpoint would be a sixth.

Revenue by customer type: only one of the three is growing

Source: Planet Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2026, revenue disaggregated by customer type. Defense and intelligence rose 55% to $180.232 million and supplied all $63.4 million of the group’s revenue growth. Civil government was flat at $71.910 million against $71.887 million. Commercial fell 1.1% to $55.585 million. Bars are scaled to $180.232 million.

Contracted future revenue: backlog, remaining performance obligations and deferred revenue

Source: Planet Form 10-K (January 31, 2026) and Form 10-Q (April 30, 2026), plus the accompanying earnings releases. Backlog figures of “over $900 million” and “over $906 million” are the company’s own wording and are plotted at those values. Deferred revenue is the sum of the current $230.682 million and non-current $16.240 million balances. Bars are scaled to $906 million. Note the direction of travel: backlog rose in the quarter while remaining performance obligations fell by $36.4 million.

Adjusted EBITDA: the first profitable year, and the step back

Source: Planet earnings releases of March 19, 2026 and June 4, 2026, reconciliation of net loss to adjusted EBITDA. Bars show the absolute size of each figure scaled to $15.5 million; green is positive, red is negative, gold is guidance. The full-year fiscal 2027 range of $0 to $10 million sits below the $15.5 million actually delivered in fiscal 2026, on revenue guided about 41% higher at the midpoint.

Liquidity against the convertible

Source: Planet consolidated and condensed consolidated balance sheets. Cash plus short-term investments is $118.048M + $104.027M at January 31, 2025; $229.441M + $410.649M at January 31, 2026; and $368.090M + $362.745M at April 30, 2026. The 2030 notes are carried at $447.569 million net of unamortized discount and issuance costs against a $460.0 million principal. Bars are scaled to $730.835 million.

06 What Planet actually sells

Planet designs, builds and operates its own satellites, then licenses what they capture. The 10-K describes a business that collects hundreds of millions of square kilometers of Earth data every day, added to an archive of imagery going back to 2009 and daily Earth scanning going back to 2017. That archive cannot be recreated after the fact, which is the clearest structural advantage the company has.

The offering splits into four things:

• Monitoring. The SuperDove fleet works as an always-on scanner of the planet, imaging at up to 3.5 meter ground sampling distance. This is the backbone of what the company calls its one-to-many model: the same image can be licensed to an unlimited number of customers, which is what separates Planet from legacy providers that sold single images exclusively.
• High-resolution tasking. SkySat and Pelican satellites can be pointed at a specified location several times a day, reaching up to 50 centimeter class resolution after processing on Generation 1 Pelicans. They support points, long strips, stereo collects and video, all through an API.
• Hyperspectral. Tanager captures over 400 spectral bands across the visible and shortwave infrared at 30 meter resolution, developed with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and sponsored by Carbon Mapper to detect methane and carbon dioxide super-emitters.
• Satellite services. The newest and most consequential line. Planet builds and operates satellites that the customer owns, invoicing against contractual milestones, and typically retains licensing rights over some of the imagery those satellites produce so it can resell capacity to its wider base. Sweden, Germany and Japan via JSAT are the three disclosed examples.

On top of that sits the software layer: the Planet Insights Platform, which absorbed the former Sentinel Hub product, plus analytics products and, from the first quarter of fiscal 2027, a private beta of an AI application that makes the archive queryable in natural language. Planet also announced SuperRes in May 2026, a technique for upscaling PlanetScope data toward a two-meter class visual product.

As of January 31, 2026 the company had approximately 1,000 employees, of whom about 945 were full time, working across 29 countries. The corporate headquarters in San Francisco is roughly 71,280 square feet and houses all satellite manufacturing, testing and research and development. European offices are in Berlin, Haarlem, Ljubljana and Graz, and the Washington D.C. office is the headquarters of the federal subsidiary, Planet Labs Federal, Inc.

07 Government versus commercial: the mix that explains the story

Planet reports revenue in three customer types. The fiscal 2026 split, from the 10-K, is the single most informative table the company publishes.

Two facts fall out of that table and neither is in the headline of any press release. First, defense and intelligence delivered more than 100% of the group’s revenue growth in fiscal 2026: the segment added $63.951 million while the other two together shrank by $0.576 million. Second, commercial revenue has now declined in each of the last two fiscal years and is smaller in absolute dollars than it was in fiscal 2024, when it was the largest of the three categories at $65.5 million.

The first quarter of fiscal 2027 pushed the concentration further. Defense and intelligence was $61.386 million of $94.150 million, or 65.2% of revenue, up 67.5% year on year. Civil government was $16.169 million, marginally below the $16.280 million of a year earlier. Commercial was $16.595 million, up 24.4% from $13.338 million — the first quarterly increase in that line for some time, though from a low base and off a single quarter.

Geography tells the same story from another angle. In fiscal 2026, North America was $132.010 million, Europe, Middle East and Africa $103.674 million, Asia Pacific and Japan $59.813 million, and Latin America $12.230 million. Within those, the United States contributed $123.9 million, Japan $38.0 million and Ukraine $35.9 million — enough on its own to exceed 10% of group revenue and to be broken out in the notes. In the first quarter of fiscal 2027, EMEA grew 86.0% year on year to $35.053 million against North America’s 25.4% to $37.037 million, so Europe is close to overtaking the home market.

08 Fiscal 2026: the year the model worked

The year ended January 31, 2026 is the one that changed the argument about this company, and it is worth setting out in full because the fiscal calendar makes it easy to compare the wrong periods.

The headline net loss of $246.9 million looks catastrophic next to $15.5 million of adjusted EBITDA and $52.9 million of free cash flow. Most of the gap is the warrant liability: as the share price rose, the fair value of the warrants Planet had to carry as a liability rose with it, and the increase was booked as a loss. The company quantified it at $161.4 million for the year, equivalent to $0.52 of the $0.80 loss per share. That mechanism is now dead: the public warrants were redeemed in April 2026 and the private placement warrants were exercised on a cashless basis, so from the second quarter of fiscal 2027 onwards the reported net loss will no longer be dragged around by the share price.

The customer count deserves a note because it went the wrong way and the company retired the metric in the same breath. End-of-period customers fell from 976 to 897, which Planet attributes to a deliberate shift of the direct sales force toward large opportunities while smaller users are pushed to the self-service Planet Insights Platform, whose users are excluded from the count. Planet stated that the metric had become less meaningful and that it would stop reporting it from the first quarter of fiscal 2027. That reasoning is coherent. It also removes the one published series that showed the breadth of the customer base narrowing while the revenue concentrated.

09 First quarter fiscal 2027 in detail, and what the second quarter has to beat

Read the operating lines rather than the net loss. Revenue grew 42.1%, but operating expenses grew 43.6% and gross margin fell by 1.7 percentage points on a GAAP basis and by three points on the non-GAAP basis the company guides to. Research and development rose 44.8% to $33.420 million, sales and marketing rose 39.6% to $22.782 million, and general and administrative rose 45.5% to $29.087 million, though that last line includes $6.211 million of litigation expenses relating to the Delaware class action and an acquisition dispute, against $0.326 million a year earlier.

The result is that a quarter with record revenue produced a slightly negative adjusted EBITDA and slightly negative free cash flow. That is a deliberate choice, stated openly by management on the fiscal 2026 call — leaning in and investing behind the opportunity — and it is reflected in guidance that holds full-year adjusted EBITDA at $0 to $10 million even as the revenue guide rises.

What to watch in the second quarter print

• Revenue against $102 million to $107 million. The sequential step from $94.150 million to the guidance midpoint is about 11%, which is a larger sequential move than any quarter of fiscal 2026.
• Non-GAAP gross margin against 52% to 55%. The first quarter came in at 56%, above the 52% to 54% full-year range, so a sequential decline is built into the guidance and would not by itself be new information.
• Adjusted EBITDA against $0 to $5 million. A return to positive would confirm that the first-quarter loss was a phasing issue. A second consecutive negative quarter makes the $0 to $10 million full-year range arithmetically demanding.
• Remaining performance obligations. They fell from $852.4 million to $816.0 million in the first quarter. Whether that was recognition outpacing new signings, or a genuine slowdown, is answered by the next reading.
• The share count on the cover of the 10-Q. The most direct evidence of how much of the $1.5 billion at-the-market capacity has been used.
• Any change in the fiscal 2027 revenue range. It has already been raised once, on June 4.

10 Capital structure: the convertible, the warrants and the $1.5 billion shelf

Planet’s balance sheet at April 30, 2026 shows $1,251.431 million of total assets, $807.727 million of total liabilities and $443.704 million of stockholders’ equity. The liability side is dominated by two items: $246.922 million of deferred revenue, which is customer money already collected, and $447.569 million of convertible notes.

The 2030 convertible notes

On September 12, 2025 Planet issued $460.0 million of 0.50% convertible senior notes due October 15, 2030. The initial conversion rate is 83.6715 shares per $1,000 of principal, equivalent to a conversion price of about $11.95 per share. Alongside the issue the company bought capped call transactions for $39.6 million with a strike of about $11.95 and a cap of $18.04.

The share price has spent 2026 well above both numbers. Two consequences follow. First, the notes are deep in the money: the 10-Q records their estimated fair value at April 30, 2026 as $1,442.9 million against a $460.0 million principal. Second, the conversion condition was met. As of May 1, 2026 the conditional conversion feature was triggered, and the notes became convertible at holders’ option from May 1 through July 31, 2026. Planet can settle in cash, in stock, or in a combination, at its election. If the full $460.0 million were converted into shares at the initial rate, that is 38,488,890 shares, about 10.8% of the 356.4 million currently outstanding, against which the capped calls offset dilution only up to $18.04.

Whether any holders converted during that window, and how Planet chose to settle, is information the second quarter filing will carry. It is one of the more consequential unknowns going into the print.

The warrants, now closed out

Planet announced the redemption of its public warrants on March 27, 2026 and completed it on May 4, 2026. During the quarter ended April 30, 2026 it issued 9,374,075 shares on exercise at $11.50, raising $107.8 million in gross proceeds. Only 71,310 warrants went unredeemed, and were bought back at a cent each. The private placement warrants were exercised on a cashless basis. Separately, 1,065,594 warrants to purchase Class A stock at a weighted average exercise price of $9.38 remain outstanding with a weighted average remaining term of 3.9 years.

The $1.5 billion at-the-market program

On June 5, 2026, the day after results, Planet filed an automatic shelf registration statement and a prospectus supplement for an equity distribution agreement covering Class A common stock with an aggregate offering price of up to $1,500,000,000. The syndicate is unusually broad — Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Barclays, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, BofA Securities, Cantor Fitzgerald, Citizens JMP, Craig-Hallum, Needham, Northland, Wedbush, Clear Street and JonesTrading are all named — and the agreement allows not only ordinary agency sales but also range forward sale agreements, under which a forward purchaser borrows and sells shares now and Planet settles later.

Capacity is not issuance. Nothing in the prospectus supplement obliges Planet to sell a single share, and with $730.8 million already on the balance sheet the immediate need is not obvious. But the size relative to the company is what the market reacted to: $1.5 billion of authorized capacity against a market capitalization of about $15.5 billion at the June 4 closing price of $43.53, and about $7.7 billion at the August 3 close. The mechanics of at-the-market programs, forward sales and how issuance capacity differs from issuance are covered in more depth in the Merlintrader guide to dilution, ATMs and PIPEs.

Share count

The share count rose by 21.1 million, or 6.3%, in the first quarter of fiscal 2027, most of it from warrant exercises that brought in $107.8 million of cash. That is dilution that paid for itself. The open question is what the next cover page shows, because from June 5 onwards there is a $1.5 billion program available and, from May 1 to July 31, a convertible that holders could put back into shares.

11 Contracts, catalysts, and the difference between a funded order and a ceiling

Planet’s announcements fall into categories with very different economic weight. Sorting them is most of the analytical work.

The pattern is consistent. What is contracted and funded is European and Asian sovereign demand plus a growing but individually modest set of U.S. government awards. What is unquantified is the American headline risk and the American optionality at the same time: SHIELD is a vehicle Planet has to win work under, and the Google partnership is research. Both are real. Neither is in the backlog.

12 The satellite fleet and the constellation refresh

The fleet is in the middle of a generational change, and the economics of the next two years depend on how cleanly it happens.

• SuperDove. The daily-scan workhorses at up to 3.5 meter resolution. They are small, cheap and replaced continuously; the archive they feed is the asset.
• SkySat. The older high-resolution tasking fleet, still in service and still sold as part of the dedicated capacity packages, but the generation the Pelicans are replacing.
• Pelican Generation 1. The replacement for SkySat, up to 50 centimeter class after processing. Nine were on orbit after the May 2026 launch of three, one of which is the Swedish Armed Forces’ first sovereign reconnaissance satellite. These are also the satellites underpinning the German dedicated-capacity contract.
• Pelican Generation 2. Designed for up to 30 centimeter class imagery. Pelican-11, launched on July 7, 2026 on Transporter-17, is the second technology demonstrator for this generation and explicitly is not expected to produce commercially available data. It is an engineering pathfinder whose job is to de-risk the production fleet.
• Tanager. The hyperspectral satellite built with JPL and sponsored by Carbon Mapper, over 400 spectral bands at 30 meter resolution, launched in August 2024. A shortwave-infrared-only variant with a wider swath is in design.
• Owl. Announced alongside the Swedish contract in January 2026, designed to deliver near-daily one-meter class imagery. No launch schedule has been published.

Planet has launched over 600 satellites since inception, which is the number the company uses when it argues that its manufacturing line is the moat rather than any single spacecraft. The Berlin facility announced with the Isar agreement is intended to double next-generation Pelican production capacity, adding up to 70 employees to about 150 already there.

The capital cost of all this is visible in the guidance: $80 million to $95 million of capital expenditure for fiscal 2027, against $81.5 million in fiscal 2026 and $49.6 million in fiscal 2025. Capital expenditure was 26% of revenue in fiscal 2026 against 20% in fiscal 2025, and 19.1% of revenue in the first quarter of fiscal 2027. A constellation refresh is a period of elevated spending that produces no incremental revenue until the new satellites are commissioned and sold against, which is precisely the phase Planet is in.

13 AI and the Planet Insights Platform

Planet’s AI story has three distinct layers and they are frequently discussed as one.

What is selling. AI-enabled analytics are already inside contracted work. The NGA maritime domain awareness contract is explicitly for automated detection of ship-to-ship transfers and dark fleet activity. The German and Swedish agreements both include AI-enabled situational awareness solutions in their scope. Planetary Variables such as soil moisture and biomass proxy are sold into agriculture through partners including Nave Analytics, and the AiDash partnership makes Planet the preferred provider of fuel monitoring data for North American utility wildfire risk mitigation. This layer is inside the $906 million backlog.

What is in beta. During the first quarter of fiscal 2027 Planet launched the private beta of an AI application designed to make its global archive queryable in natural language, combining daily imagery with large language models so non-technical users can run time-series analysis and generate automated reports. In May 2026 it announced SuperRes, which uses AI to upscale PlanetScope data toward a two-meter class visual product. Neither has disclosed pricing or contracted revenue.

What is research. The Google partnership on Project Suncatcher explores whether machine-learning compute can run on solar-powered satellite clusters in orbit. Planet’s role is the spacecraft. It is an R&D collaboration with no disclosed economics, and the timelines discussed publicly run to 2027 for prototypes and considerably further for anything at scale.

The Planet Insights Platform, which absorbed the Sentinel Hub product acquired in 2023, is the self-service channel. It matters more than its revenue suggests because its users are deliberately excluded from the customer count and from the ACV book of business, which is part of why the reported customer number fell while revenue grew.

14 Management, governance and the vote that is worth reading

Will Marshall is Co-Founder, Chief Executive Officer and Chairperson. Robert Schingler Jr. is Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer. Ashley Johnson is President and Chief Financial Officer and signs the company’s filings. The board, following the July 9, 2026 annual meeting, includes Carl Bass, Ita M. Brennan, Vijaya Gadde, General John W. Raymond, Scott Reese, Kristen Robinson and Gary B. Smith. KPMG LLP was ratified as auditor for the fiscal year ending January 31, 2027.

The share structure concentrates control. Class B shares carry twenty votes each and are held entirely by the two founders, who consequently control over approximately 62% of the voting power of the capital stock. Planet is also a Delaware public benefit corporation, which obliges the board to balance shareholder pecuniary interests against the public benefit identified in its charter and the interests of others materially affected by the company’s conduct. Both features are disclosed as risk factors in the 10-Q, and both reduce the practical influence of outside shareholders on major decisions.

The annual meeting results carry one detail worth noting. Scott Reese was re-elected with 665,275,602 votes for and 1,018,386 withheld. General Raymond drew 41,706,354 withheld votes. Vijaya Gadde drew 72,107,314 withheld votes against 594,186,674 for — roughly 10.8% of votes cast on her election, and far above the other two nominees. Withhold votes are not binding and the director was re-elected, but the dispersion is a signal about how some institutional holders view specific board seats.

Two legal matters are disclosed. The Delaware class action brought in August 2024 against former officers and directors of the SPAC and the company reached a mediator’s proposal to settle following a May 7, 2026 mediation, subject to definitive documents and court approval; claims against the company itself were dismissed in January 2025, but Planet remains obliged to indemnify the former officers and directors. An acquisition-related arbitration demand filed in November 2025 was settled by formal agreement on May 11, 2026. Accruals for both sit in accrued and other current liabilities, and $6.211 million of related expense ran through general and administrative in the first quarter of fiscal 2027.

15 Ownership, Insiders And Retail Sentiment

Google is both a large shareholder and a large supplier. It held 35,248,893 Class A shares at April 30, 2026, up from 34,422,330 at January 31, 2026, and more than 10% of the Class A stock. Planet buys hosting and other services from Google: $7.8 million of expense in the first quarter of fiscal 2027, of which $7.0 million sat in cost of revenue, and aggregate purchase commitments of $193.0 million under a hosting agreement running through January 31, 2028. That relationship is disclosed as a related-party transaction and is a meaningful part of the cost base.

Insider selling in July 2026 was heavy in absolute terms and pre-programd in structure. Six Form 4 filings between July 2 and July 24 report sales of roughly $11.4 million in aggregate: Will Marshall 200,000 shares for about $5.18 million at prices between $25.33 and $27.17, Ashley Johnson 110,028 shares for about $2.43 million, Robert Schingler Jr. 89,593 shares for about $2.32 million, Kristen Robinson about $0.93 million, Ita M. Brennan about $0.38 million and General Raymond about $0.17 million. Every one of those filings carries the Rule 10b5-1 affirmation, with plans adopted between July 2025 and April 2026 — that is, months before the June results and the June 5 equity program. Separately, seven directors received routine restricted stock unit grants on July 10, 2026.

Retail discussion of $PL through July concentrated on the June 5 gap, the size of the at-the-market program relative to the cash already on the balance sheet, and the argument that European sovereign demand is a multi-year structural change rather than a 2026 event. Those are non-professional opinions, they are not research, and they are recorded here only as a description of positioning and sentiment. Nothing in them is a source for any figure on this page.

The block below is a snapshot of the Stocktwits flow, with its date. These are opinions of retail traders and non-professional investors, not analyst research, and they measure attention and how one-sided positioning has become rather than anything about the business.

16 Catalyst table

17 The two cases, stated as fairly as possible

Planet has done something rare for a company of its size: it has turned a capital-intensive hardware business into one that generated $134.4 million of operating cash flow and $52.9 million of free cash flow in a single fiscal year, while growing revenue 26% and then accelerating to 42%. The satellite services model solves the two problems that always constrained Earth observation companies at once — it gets a sovereign customer to fund the satellite, and it leaves Planet with licensing rights over the imagery those satellites produce, so the same hardware serves the wider base. European defense budgets are being rebuilt on a multi-year horizon, Planet already has Germany, Sweden and NATO in that market, and its European headquarters, mission control and forthcoming manufacturing line are in Berlin rather than California. Backlog is above $906 million against fiscal 2027 revenue guidance of $425 million to $441 million, recurring ACV is 99%, and net dollar retention including winbacks improved to 118%. With $730.8 million of cash and investments against a $460 million convertible struck at $11.95, the balance sheet is not the constraint it once was.

Strip out defense and intelligence and this company did not grow at all in fiscal 2026: civil government was flat and commercial fell for the second consecutive year and is smaller than it was in fiscal 2024. Revenue is increasingly concentrated in a handful of sovereign contracts — two customers were 13% and 12% of fiscal 2026 revenue, one was 33% of receivables, and Ukraine alone was $35.9 million — which makes the top line dependent on the durability of specific government budgets. Profitability moved backwards in the most recent quarter: adjusted EBITDA went from a $1.2 million profit to a $1.0 million loss, free cash flow turned negative, and full-year adjusted EBITDA guidance of $0 to $10 million is below the $15.5 million actually delivered on 41% less revenue. Operating expenses grew faster than revenue. The company retired its customer count metric in the same year the number fell 8%. And on the day after raising guidance it registered capacity to sell up to $1.5 billion of stock, which the market read for what it was — a decision to keep the option open — and repriced the shares 26% lower in one session.

18 Scenario framework

These are analytical frameworks for organizing what the next few reports could look like. They are not forecasts, targets or recommendations.

One structural point cuts across all three: satellite services revenue is recognized against contractual milestones on hardware Planet builds for someone else. It is lumpier and lower margin than licensing the same imagery to many customers, which is part of why non-GAAP gross margin guidance of 52% to 54% for fiscal 2027 sits below the 59% delivered in fiscal 2026. Mix, not execution, explains a good deal of the margin path.

19 Merlintrader bottom line

Planet goes into its second quarter fiscal 2027 report with a business that is measurably better than it was two years ago and a share price 58% below the closing peak set on May 28, 2026. Both statements are drawn from the record, and they are not in conflict. The de-rating dates from a single session, June 5, 2026, when the company followed a record quarter and raised guidance with a registration statement for up to $1.5 billion of stock.

The hierarchy of evidence here is unusually clean. Revenue of $94.150 million, gross profit of $50.401 million and cash of $730.8 million are figures on a filed statement. The €240 million German agreement and the low nine-figure Swedish agreement are quantified, signed contracts with satellites already flying against them. The $21.9 million NGA option is a funded exercise on an IDIQ ceiling, and the ceiling is not the order. SHIELD is a vehicle Planet must still win work under. Project Suncatcher is research. The Isar launch agreement is a cost Planet is paying, on a rocket that has not yet reached orbit. Anyone reading the second quarter release should sort the new information into those same buckets before deciding what it changed.

Two numbers will settle most of the argument faster than the revenue line. The first is adjusted EBITDA: positive, and the first quarter was a phasing issue on a company investing deliberately. Negative again, and the $0 to $10 million full-year range becomes arithmetically hard. The second is on the cover page of the filing, where the share count records how much of the $1.5 billion program and how much of the convertible have landed in the equity.

For broader catalyst tracking across the space, defense and AI complex, the Merlintrader Free Catalyst Calendar lists the dated events for the sector.

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