Palantir, the US-based big data processor backed by data analytics provider Relx, is considering an initial public offering that banks have told it could value it at $41bn, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday.
Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley have been in discussions with the company over an offering in the second half of 2019, people familiar with the matter told WSJ.
Founded in 2003, Palantir produces software that analyses a vast range of personal and official data from disparate sources spanning digital text, situational data and audio recordings, using propietary algorithms to detect patterns.
The company has been highly secretive since its inception but has never generated a profit, according to a Bloomberg report in April 2018. Its model involves company engineers working onsite at security and financial services clients, but it has recently developed a more automated system known as Foundry.
The proposed $41bn valuation would represent a doubling of the company’s valuation since its last publicly disclosed round in 2015, in which it raised $880m.
The 2015 round valued Palantir at $20.3bn, but the Bloomberg report stated that investment banking firm JP Morgan, one of the company’s backers, valued it at $6bn at that time while Fred Alger Management, which invested as early as 2006, set a $10bn valuation in December 2017.
The assessment came shortly after news that prospective underwriters told ride hailing service Uber it could be valued at $120bn in its own 2019 IPO. Both figures have largely been viewed externally as being highly optimistic.
Palantir has raised more than $1.9bn in funding according to regulatory filings, most recently securing $20m in late 2016. It did not reveal the investors in the 2015 round.
REV, the Relx subsidiary then known as Reed Elsevier Ventures, led the company’s $35m series B round in 2009. Its other investors include Founders Fund, the venture capital firm launched by Palantir CEO Peter Thiel; Tiger Global Management; and In-Q-Tel, the VC vehicle for the US intelligence community.
