Palantir Technologies (PLTR) — Company Research

Last Updated: 19 April 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)	$2.87 billion
Net Income (FY2025)	$462 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 64% YoY in FY2025 Q4, with AIP (AI Platform) driving net-new contract expansion
\
• 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 + operating margin) now >80% — elite SaaS operating leverage
\
• Net dollar retention 118% (FY2025 Q4) — existing customers are expanding aggressively
\
• Cash and investments $5.4bn, zero debt — no dilution required to fund growth
\

\

Bear Case

\

\
• Trailing P/E ~490x and P/S ~90x (April 2026) leave essentially no margin for execution missteps
\
• Top-10 customer concentration ~34% of revenue — any single enterprise or agency churn would be visible
\
• Alex Karp's dual-class voting structure gives founders outsized control; insider sell programmes have been significant
\
• Commercial segment growth rate outside the US remains mid-single digit — international expansion is slow
\
• 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	FY2025 Revenue	% of Total	YoY Growth
US Commercial	$803m	28%	+61%
US Government	$1.14bn	40%	+41%
International Commercial	$573m	20%	+8%
International Government	$351m	12%	+4%
Total	$2.87bn	100%	+34%

\

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%	$462m	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)	—
P/E (TTM)	~560x	FY2025 GAAP EPS $0.19
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	Positioning vs Palantir
Snowflake (SNOW)	~$70bn	$4.2bn revenue run-rate, ~26% YoY growth	Deepest cloud data warehouse; no operational workflow layer
Databricks (private)	~$62bn last round	$3bn ARR milestone; Mosaic AI bundle	Lakehouse + AI stack; IPO-bound; partners with Palantir in some deployments
Microsoft (MSFT)	~$2.85T	Fabric unified analytics; Copilot Studio enterprise rollout	Tightly integrated with Microsoft estate; weaker for heterogeneous/non-Microsoft data
Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH)	~$14bn	~$11bn FY25 revenue, >95% US government	Services-led competitor on federal contracts; Palantir displaces billable services hours
Leidos (LDOS)	~$22bn	~$16bn FY25 revenue	Largest pure-play federal services/IT contractor; overlaps on intelligence analytics awards

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)
\

\ \

Track PLTR live on the ChartsView Live Charts. Check macro data on the Economic Calendar. Discuss on the ChartsView Forum or read more analysis on the Blog.

\ \

Disclaimer: This research is produced by ChartsView for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute financial advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. All information is sourced from publicly available company filings, press releases, and official data. ChartsView does not use analyst opinions or third-party ratings. Always conduct your own due diligence and consider your personal financial situation before making investment decisions. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

\