Planet Labs gains after Needham says it has a five-year lead on potential competition

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Needham launches coverage on Planet Labs PBC (NYSE:PL) with a Buy rating on its view the company is disrupting the earth observation industry.

Analyst Chad Tevebaugh: "PL is a leader in next-gen Earth Observation with a fully operational ~200 satellite fleet capable of imaging 350mm sq. kilometers of area per day, or ~2x the earth's landmass, and a cloud-native analytics platform. By democratizing access to geospatial data and making it easier to use, PL is expanding existing vertical markets and unlocking new ones."

Tevebaugh and team note that Planet Labs (PL) is the only company with a daily scan of the entire earth, which they say give it a five-year lead or more on the nearest competitor, as well as an archive of over 1,700 images for every point on earth. The firm models accelerating top-line growth for PL in FY23 and FY24 as the company ramps investment in S&M and software development.

Shares of Planet Labs (PL) are up 3.64% premarket to $5.70 vs. the post-SPAC range of $4.95 to $12.15.