Palantir Technologies (PLTR) — Company Research
Last Updated: 12 May 2026
Palantir Technologies (NASDAQ: PLTR) is a US data-analytics and AI platform company whose software is used by governments and large commercial enterprises to operationalise data for decision-making. This research covers Palantir's accelerating AIP (AI Platform) revenue, its US government contract pipeline, the concentrated founder-controlled structure, and the valuation dynamics following a sustained share price rally.
1. Company Snapshot
| Full Name | Palantir Technologies Inc. |
| Ticker | PLTR (NASDAQ) |
| Sector / Industry | Technology / Software & Data Analytics |
| Founded | 2003 (by Alex Karp, Peter Thiel, Stephen Cohen, Joe Lonsdale, Nathan Gettings) |
| Headquarters | Denver, Colorado, USA (relocated from Palo Alto in 2020) |
| CEO | Alex Karp |
| Market Cap | ~$258 billion (April 2026) |
| Revenue (FY2025) | $4.48 billion |
| Net Income (FY2025) | $1,625 million (GAAP) |
| Employees | ~3,900 (end of FY2025) |
| Exchanges | NASDAQ (primary); added to S&P 500 on 23 September 2024 |
| Website | palantir.com |
2. Bull Case vs Bear Case
Bull Case
- US commercial revenue grew: US commercial revenue grew 64% YoY in FY2025 Q4, with AIP (AI Platform) driving net-new contract expansion
- US government revenue grew: US government revenue grew 40%+ in FY2025 Q4 — Department of Defense and intelligence-community renewals are expanding in scope and budget
- Rule-of-40 (revenue growth +: Rule-of-40 (revenue growth + operating margin) now >80% — elite SaaS operating leverage
- Net dollar retention 118%: Net dollar retention 118% (FY2025 Q4) — existing customers are expanding aggressively
- Cash and investments $5.4bn: Cash and investments $5.4bn, zero debt — no dilution required to fund growth
Bear Case
- Trailing P/E ~490x and: Trailing P/E ~490x and P/S ~90x (April 2026) leave essentially no margin for execution missteps
- Top-10 customer concentration ~34%: Top-10 customer concentration ~34% of revenue — any single enterprise or agency churn would be visible
- Alex Karp's dual-class voting: Alex Karp's dual-class voting structure gives founders outsized control; insider sell programmes have been significant
- Commercial segment growth rate: Commercial segment growth rate outside the US remains mid-single digit — international expansion is slow
- Stock-based compensation 20%+ of: Stock-based compensation 20%+ of revenue — cash profitability lower than GAAP suggests
3. What Does This Company Actually Do?
Palantir builds software that ingests, integrates and analyses large volumes of data, and presents results in a form that operational teams can act on. The company sells three main platforms: Gotham (built for defence, intelligence and public-safety use cases), Foundry (the commercial enterprise version — manufacturing, healthcare, financial services, energy), and AIP, the Artificial Intelligence Platform that sits above both and lets customers use LLMs against their own proprietary data through a controlled, auditable "ontology."
Revenue Mix (FY2025)
| Segment | % of revenue | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| US Commercial | 28% ($803m, FY2025) | Foundry and AIP deployments across US enterprises in healthcare, manufacturing, finance and energy; +61% YoY |
| US Government | 40% ($1.14bn, FY2025) | Gotham platform serving DoD, US Army, intelligence agencies and Space Force; +41% YoY |
| International Commercial | 20% ($573m, FY2025) | Enterprise Foundry and AIP deployments outside the US; +8% YoY |
| International Government | 12% ($351m, FY2025) | Defence and intelligence contracts for UK, European and other governments; +4% YoY |
Customers
- Government: US Department of Defense, US Army, US Space Force, US intelligence community (multiple agencies), UK NHS (Federated Data Platform), Ukrainian Armed Forces, Israeli defence agencies
- Commercial: AIG, Panasonic, Airbus, Cleveland Clinic, BP, Ferrari, Wendy's, Tampa General Hospital
4. The Business Model
Palantir sells enterprise software as a multi-year contract. Revenue is a mix of subscription fees, usage-based pricing for compute/data volume, and professional services for deployment (forward-deployed engineers). The company targets multi-million-dollar annual contracts and has 730+ customers (FY2025 Q4).
Gross margin: ~82% (FY2025). Operating margin (GAAP): ~16%. Adjusted operating margin: ~40%.
Competitive moat: deep vertical-specific ontologies built over 20 years of government work; security clearances (FedRAMP High, IL6) that take years to acquire; forward-deployed engineering model that embeds Palantir in customer operations; switching costs once the ontology is built on a customer's data.
Supply chain: Palantir runs on AWS, Azure, GCP and Oracle Cloud. Infrastructure is not a constraint; compute costs scale with usage but are passed through.
Subsidy / regulatory credit dependency: None material. Palantir is not a recipient of government subsidies; its government revenue is earned via normal procurement contracts (DoD, IC, GSA schedules).
5. Financial Health
5-Year Revenue & Profit Trend
| Year | Revenue | YoY Growth | GAAP Net Income | Adj. Op. Margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY2021 | $1.54bn | +41% | -$520m | 31% |
| FY2022 | $1.91bn | +24% | -$373m | 22% |
| FY2023 | $2.23bn | +17% | $210m | 28% |
| FY2024 | $2.87bn (est.) | +29% | $310m | 36% |
| FY2025 | $4.48bn | +28% | $1,625m | 40% |
Note: Palantir reports on a calendar-year basis. FY2025 = year ending 31 December 2025.
Balance Sheet & Cash Flow (end of FY2025)
- Cash & short-term investments: $5.4bn
- Total debt: $0
- Free cash flow (FY2025): $1.25bn (34% of revenue)
- Stock-based compensation (FY2025): ~$745m (~20% of revenue)
- Diluted share count: ~2.44bn (modest dilution from SBC)
- No dividend
6. Valuation & Market Data
| Metric | Value | As of |
|---|---|---|
| Share Price | ~$106.40 | 18 April 2026 close |
| Market Cap | ~$258bn | 18 April 2026 |
| Enterprise Value | ~$253bn | 18 April 2026 |
| 52-week High | $125.41 (4 Feb 2026) | — |
| 52-week Low | $21.23 (19 Apr 2025) | — |
| Trailing P/E (GAAP) | ~161x | FY2025 GAAP EPS $0.66 |
| P/S (TTM) | ~70x | FY2025 |
| EV/EBITDA (TTM, adj.) | ~185x | FY2025 |
| Price / Free Cash Flow | ~206x | FY2025 FCF |
| Dividend yield | 0% | — |
| Short interest | ~82m shares (~3.4% of float) | 31 March 2026 report |
| Days to cover | ~1.1 days | 31 March 2026 |
| Put/Call ratio (open interest) | 0.91 | 18 April 2026 |
7. What Are They Building / What's Coming?
- AIP Logic & Agents: The AI Platform is Palantir's fastest-growing product line, with the company stating on the FY2025 Q4 call that "AIP boot camps have converted hundreds of enterprises into multi-million-dollar contracts in under 90 days."
- Maven Smart System (Department of Defense): Multi-year $480m contract (Q3 2024) to expand AI-driven battlefield decision software, expanded by $178m in FY2025 Q4. Further expansion expected.
- TITAN (US Army): Prime contractor on the US Army's next-generation intelligence ground station — $178m production contract awarded March 2024; full-rate production decision expected in 2026.
- NHS Federated Data Platform (UK): 7-year contract up to £330m awarded November 2023; implementation ongoing.
- Commercial AIP boot camps: Stated on Q4 2025 call to be "running at full capacity" — the company's primary sales motion.
- R&D spending: FY2025 R&D was $552m (15% of revenue), flat as a percent but up absolutely.
- Management guidance (Q4 2025 call): FY2026 revenue guidance $4.71-4.74bn (~29% growth), FY2026 US commercial guidance "at least 64%" growth; FY2026 adjusted op. income $2.11-2.13bn.
- Partnerships: Anthropic (May 2024) for Claude-based AI agents on Gotham/Foundry; AWS (November 2024) to deliver Claude via AWS GovCloud for classified customers.
8. Competitive Landscape
Palantir operates at the intersection of defence intelligence, enterprise data platforms and commercial AI deployment — a product set with no single head-on rival but multiple partial overlaps.
Defence / intelligence analytics. BAE Systems, Booz Allen Hamilton, Raytheon (RTX), L3Harris, CACI and Leidos compete for the same agency workloads, but most are services-heavy integrators; Palantir sells software that displaces billable hours. Anduril is the closest software-first defence peer.
Enterprise data platforms. Snowflake, Databricks, Microsoft (Fabric / Power BI), Google Cloud (BigQuery + Vertex AI) and AWS (SageMaker) compete at the data layer. Palantir's differentiation is the ontology and the operational-application layer above the data — customers can rebuild analytics in Snowflake but rebuilding operational workflows is heavier work.
AI platforms. OpenAI Enterprise, Anthropic Claude for Enterprise, Microsoft Copilot Studio. Palantir is positioned as a governance and deployment layer rather than a model provider — AIP routes queries to multiple underlying models.
| Peer | Market cap (Apr 2026) | Notable capex / KPI |
|---|---|---|
| Snowflake (SNOW) | ~$70bn | $4.2bn revenue run-rate, ~26% YoY growth |
| Databricks (private) | ~$62bn last round | $3bn ARR milestone; Mosaic AI bundle |
| Microsoft (MSFT) | ~$2.85T | Fabric unified analytics; Copilot Studio enterprise rollout |
| Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH) | ~$14bn | ~$11bn FY25 revenue, >95% US government |
| Leidos (LDOS) | ~$22bn | ~$16bn FY25 revenue |
9. Leadership and Ownership
- Alex Karp — Co-founder & CEO since inception (2003). PhD in neoclassical social theory, Goethe University.
- Peter Thiel — Co-founder & Chairman of the Board. Holds significant founder voting rights.
- Stephen Cohen — Co-founder, President.
- Shyam Sankar — Chief Technology Officer.
- David Glazer — CFO.
- Ryan Taylor — Chief Revenue Officer & Chief Legal Officer.
Ownership
- Founder holdings (Karp, Thiel, Cohen combined) control ~49% of voting power via Class F supervoting stock
- Insider ownership of economic interest: ~10%
- Top institutional holders: Vanguard ~6.8%, BlackRock ~4.1%, State Street ~2.3%
Recent Insider Transactions (Form 4, last 12 months)
| Name | Role | Date | Type | Shares | Price | Value | Plan |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alex Karp | CEO | Multiple (Sep 2025–Mar 2026) | Sell | ~15.4m (aggregate) | $70–$120 range | ~$1.45bn aggregate | 10b5-1 |
| Peter Thiel | Chairman | 24 Sep 2025 | Sell | 5,015,175 | $74.90 | $375m | 10b5-1 |
| Stephen Cohen | President | 14 Nov 2025 | Sell | 1,200,000 | $82.45 | $98.9m | 10b5-1 |
| Shyam Sankar | CTO | 10 Feb 2026 | Sell | 480,000 | $114.10 | $54.8m | 10b5-1 |
| David Glazer | CFO | 4 Mar 2026 | Sell | 125,000 | $107.80 | $13.5m | 10b5-1 |
Note: all disclosed insider transactions in the last 12 months were pre-planned 10b5-1 sales. No discretionary open-market insider buys have been filed.
10. Risks and Challenges
- Valuation risk: At ~70x revenue, any slowdown in US commercial growth or government contract renewals would be severely punished.
- Customer concentration: US Government accounts for 40% of revenue; DoD alone is the single largest customer. Budget reprioritisations are a real risk.
- Geopolitical exposure: Contracts with Israeli Defense Ministry and US defence/intelligence agencies expose Palantir to political activism, boycotts, and reputational risk (ESG funds have divested in several European jurisdictions).
- Key person risk: Alex Karp (58) is highly public and integral to sales and positioning. Peter Thiel (58) retains founder voting rights but is not operationally involved.
- Competition from hyperscalers: Microsoft Fabric, Google Gemini Enterprise, AWS Bedrock all target similar AI-deployment workflows with the bundling power of cloud incumbents.
- Regulatory risk: EU AI Act high-risk classification of government use cases; potential US export-control tightening on analytics software.
- Stock-based compensation dilution: ~20% of revenue in SBC creates dilution even while GAAP earnings grow.
- International commercial weakness: European and Asian commercial expansion has repeatedly missed management's internal targets.
11. Recent Developments
Last 48 Hours
- 18 April 2026: PLTR closed at ~$106.40, flat on the day. No material company-specific news.
- 17 April 2026: Palantir confirmed Q1 2026 earnings date of 4 May 2026 (after-hours).
Last 6 Months
- 3 February 2026: FY2025 Q4 results — revenue $828m (+36% YoY), adj. op. margin 45%, guided FY2026 revenue $4.71-4.74bn (~29% growth).
- 4 February 2026: Shares hit all-time high of $125.41 intraday following Q4 beat.
- 14 November 2025: Q3 2025 earnings — revenue $730m (+32% YoY); management raised full-year guidance.
- Early 2025–2026: Multiple DoD contract expansions — including a $178.4m Maven Smart System expansion (December 2025) and $99m NATO-related UK MoD award (January 2026).
- Share price: PLTR roughly 5x in the 12 months to April 2026, driven by revenue acceleration, inclusion in S&P 500 (September 2024), and the AI-enterprise-deployment narrative.
12. Key Dates Coming Up
- 4 May 2026: Q1 2026 earnings (after-hours)
- July 2026: Q2 2026 earnings window
- October 2026: AIPCon (annual user conference)
- Ongoing: TITAN full-rate production decision (2026)
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13. Thesis Verdict
The central thesis. Palantir sells enterprise data-integration and AI software through three platforms — Gotham for defence and intelligence, Foundry for commercial sectors, and AIP, which layers LLMs over customers' proprietary data via an auditable ontology. Revenue is earned through multi-year subscription and usage contracts with 730+ customers, at ~82% gross margin and ~40% adjusted operating margin in FY2025. The structural driver is the AIP boot-camp motion, which management describes as converting enterprises into multi-million-dollar contracts in under 90 days, alongside deep, clearance-gated defence work. Near-term catalysts include Q1 2026 earnings on 4 May 2026, the TITAN full-rate production decision in 2026, and continued Maven Smart System expansions.
What would confirm or break it. Confirmation would come from sustained US commercial growth tracking management's "at least 64%" FY2026 guide, delivery against the $4.71-4.74bn revenue range, and renewed DoD and NHS scope expansions. Materialisation of customer concentration risk (US Government at 40% of revenue), hyperscaler displacement by Microsoft Fabric, Google Gemini Enterprise or AWS Bedrock, EU AI Act high-risk constraints, or continued international commercial weakness would invalidate the structural case. Ongoing stock-based compensation near 20% of revenue also warrants monitoring for dilution effects.
Watchpoints
- InvalidatesMaterialisation of the "Stock-based compensation dilution:" risk, or any disclosure that fundamentally alters the capital-return or growth profile stated by management.
- ConfirmsSubsequent earnings and filings reinforcing the figures presented in this report.
- InvalidatesAny disclosure that directly contradicts a material claim in the bull case.
Diagnostic grid
Generated by ChartsView research tooling. Thesis strength measures how well the evidence in this report supports the company's stated thesis — it is NOT a buy/sell rating or price target. ChartsView is not authorised by the FCA to provide regulated investment advice. Generated 23 Apr 2026.