SPIRE GLOBAL

Peter Platzer was a physicist and former hedge fund quant who became obsessed with making space data affordable. In 2012, he and his co-founders launched Spire with the thesis that CubeSats (tiny satellites the size of a loaf of bread) could collect useful data from space at a fraction of the cost of traditional satellites.

Their first satellites tracked ships using AIS signals — data that shipping companies, insurers, and navies would pay for. By deploying dozens of cheap satellites instead of one expensive one, Spire could cover the entire planet continuously.

Satellite data analytics company operating a constellation of over 100 nanosatellites. Spire collects weather, maritime, aviation, and Earth observation data from space and sells it to governments, shipping companies, airlines, and weather services.

Revenue comes from data subscription fees and space-as-a-service (letting customers run their own software on Spire's satellites). The model: instead of building one expensive satellite, launch 100 cheap ones and replace them every 2-3 years with improved versions.

Spire Maritime (global ship tracking and maritime analytics), Spire Weather (satellite-based weather data and forecasting), Spire Aviation (aircraft tracking and surveillance), Space Services (host customer payloads on Spire satellites), and Lemur-2 satellite constellation (100+ CubeSats in low Earth orbit).

Space-as-a-service (SaaS — literally). Instead of just selling data, Spire lets customers deploy their own software payloads on Spire's satellites.

This transforms Spire from a data company into an orbital computing platform. A weather agency can run its own algorithms on Spire's satellites.

A defense contractor can deploy sensing software without launching its own constellation. This platform approach scales better than selling raw data.

Revenue growth versus satellite costs. Launching and maintaining 100+ satellites in orbit is expensive, even if individual satellites are cheap.

Spire's revenue ($100M range) hasn't grown fast enough to justify the ongoing capital expenditure. The SPAC listing in 2021 raised capital but the stock has dropped over 80% from its peak.

Competition from Planet Labs, ICEYE, and other satellite data companies is intense. The data products need to be differentiated enough that customers can't get similar information from other sources.

Promus Ventures, Mitsui, Scottish Enterprise, RRE Ventures, and Grok Ventures (Mike Cannon-Brookes) backed Spire before its 2021 SPAC listing.