Space stocks have taken off on the back of both hype and substance. Investors don’t even bat an eyelid at astronomical valuations for companies with a track record of broken promises longer than the Pacific Coast Trail (cough, $ASTS, cough). It’s hard to deny the vast potential of many so-called “NewSpace” stocks shooting things up into space for any number of purposes – from datacenters to asteroid mining. As a result of this mad scramble there are now over 15,000 satellites orbiting the earth and 300 rockets launching each year. And with SpaceX reportedly planning to hit the market at a $1.5 trillion valuation, it’s expected that space stocks will get even more attention. Just a handful of these names we find compelling, and one of those is Planet Labs $PL.
Planet Labs Stock Moons
For over seven years now we’ve been tracking Planet Labs, a leader in the field of geospatial intelligence. The business model involves using satellites to take pictures of earth to monitor anything from weather patterns to military troop movement to city planning. Our previous check-in with the company left us puzzled. On one hand, their revenue growth was accelerating due to a large contract with a major satellite operator and a shiny, new partnership with Anthropic. The company also achieved its first quarter of positive adjusted EBITDA, which is a fancy accounting term that basically says “here’s how much money we could have made if we didn’t have to pay for certain things we had to pay for.”
On the other hand, Planet was still burning cash while consistently missing their own guidance. Consequently, that poor execution came with a reasonable valuati
