Planet Labs PBC Q3 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: Michael Latimore - Northland Securities, Inc. - Analyst : Great, thanks. Yeah, congrats on the strong bookings quarter here. I guess, in terms of the pilot you just highlighted there -- third pilot, great to see -- what are the kind of key catalysts or events that need to occur here to kind of get that to commercialization? And is that something that is a couple of quarters, a couple of years away?

Question: Michael Latimore - Northland Securities, Inc. - Analyst : Got it. And one basic kind of financial question, it looks like sales and marketing took a step down sequentially quite a fair amount. Is that kind of a good new run rate or was there a one-time item in there?

Question: Michael Latimore - Northland Securities, Inc. - Analyst : Got it, got it. Okay, great. Thanks a lot.

Question: Trevor Walsh - Citizens JMP Securities, LLC - Analyst : Great. Thanks, team, appreciate you taking my questions. Will, maybe to start with you, just at a high level, lots of kind of interest and buzz, just broadly around the space domain kind of from early November to now. Just given the incoming administration, just, would be curious to hear your thoughts just broadly on that and also, just what you're hearing from customers in terms of how they think things might either change positively, negatively, neutral for coming -- kind of heading into next year?

Question: Trevor Walsh - Citizens JMP Securities, LLC - Analyst : Great, terrific, thanks. And maybe just one quick follow-up, Ashley, around the new customer numbers, I understand that you're not adding as much just based on that commercial shift in the go-to-market and whatnot. How -- should we even really be concentrating on that metric just generally? REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. DECEMBER 09, 2024 / 10:00PM, PL.N - Q3 2025 Planet Labs PBC Earnings Call I know you're going to report on it, but it just seems like it's maybe not the best way to be looking at the business in terms of net new, or maybe that is still kind of relevant. I'm just trying to get an understanding of, as you bring a large company like Laconic, for example, just how that gets -- how that -- what the onboarding is for that customer in terms of -- from a (inaudible) perspective, and just -- and again, just wrapping all those things in my head around from that perspective.

Question: Trevor Walsh - Citizens JMP Securities, LLC - Analyst : Yeah, that's great. Thanks so much.

Question: Ryan Koontz - Needham & Company, LLC - Analyst : Great, thanks for the question. Ashley, on the guide, it sounds like the NASA renewal came in a little late and there might have been a couple of other deal slips. But relative to your expectations, say, 90 days ago, was there a sizable impact from a couple of deal slips that impacted the fourth-quarter guide or can you walk us through that a little bit, numbers?

Question: Ryan Koontz - Needham & Company, LLC - Analyst : That makes sense. And what's the typical time to onboard some of these larger customers? Is it two, three quarters type of thing or how should we think about that?

Question: Ryan Koontz - Needham & Company, LLC - Analyst : Got it. And if I can squeeze one more in for Will, around the competitive landscape for tasking and your data analytics, obviously, with PlanetScope, it's kind of a one of a kind there. But your follow-through ability to upsell analytics and upsell tasking, what's that competitive environment like these days relative to some of your peers, bigger and smaller?

Question: Ryan Koontz - Needham & Company, LLC - Analyst : Great. Thanks, Will. Thanks, Ashley.

Question: Jeff Van Rhee - Craig-Hallum Capital Group LLC - Analyst : Great, thanks. Hey, Ashley, Will, congrats, got a lot to smile about here. A couple of questions for me, on the top-line outlooks for '26, I know you're not giving a guide, but you've got obviously quite a bit better visibility. You've got a bunch of signings. I get that the timing of go-lives is going to be unpredictable. But if you look out to Q4, so a year from now, next year, is there a floor growth rate at which you'd be comfortable saying, hey, based on the visibility we have, we certainly should be able to grow at least x at this point?

Question: Jeff Van Rhee - Craig-Hallum Capital Group LLC - Analyst : Yeah. Yeah, yeah, appreciate the effort. And then on CapEx, I know in September, I think you had commented you expected a $13 million to $16 million run rate for foreseeable future, if I have it right. I think you did $8.9 million this quarter. You're guiding to $8 million to $11 million. I think you commented the timing this quarter. Is that the same next quarter? Is there a new thought process in terms of expected CapEx?

Question: Jeff Van Rhee - Craig-Hallum Capital Group LLC - Analyst : Great. Last one, then, maybe for me on Pelican. Obviously, congrats. It looks like that's going to be up soon. Hopefully, January, I think you commented. How should we think about time to revenue there? Just any sense of how booked up, so to speak, that unit is, how quickly you can reach high utilization? Just path to revenue for the -- for that capability.

Question: Jeff Van Rhee - Craig-Hallum Capital Group LLC - Analyst : Got it. Thank you.

Question: Caleb Henry - Quilty Analytics, LLC - Analyst : Hi, thank you. Just one question for me, it's on the SkySat and the Pelicans. It looks like all of the Pelican -- or excuse me, also of the SkySat satellites that were in the inclined orbit has since been deorbited. I was curious if you had any kind of lessons learned from those, I think it was six or seven satellites, and then how that influences the Pelican fleet. Will those all be in SSO orbits or will you kind of mix them up with inclined?

Question: Caleb Henry - Quilty Analytics, LLC - Analyst : Can you kind of clarify -- yeah, I think I got most of it. The -- you mentioned having kind of kept up pace, can you clarify what exactly that means?

Question: Caleb Henry - Quilty Analytics, LLC - Analyst : Okay. So in that case, the satellites that are gone, that doesn't put any pressure or accelerated pressure on kind of refreshing the fleet with Pelican?

Question: Caleb Henry - Quilty Analytics, LLC - Analyst : Understood. Okay, that's all my questions. Thank you.