Spire CEO sees vast potential market for space data

SAN FRANCISCO – Spire Global CEO Peter Platzer expects commercial and government demand for space data and analytics to surge in the coming years, offering enormous growth potential for the firm, which began trading shares publicly in August.

Spire currently provides space data, analytics and space services to 225 annual recurring revenue, or subscription, customers “out of an estimated potential target pool of over 200,000 customers,” Platzer said during a Nov. 10 earnings call. “We believe we have barely scratched the surface of this estimated $90 billion-a-year market opportunity.”

Spire reported $9.6 million in revenue for the third quarter ended September 30, a 33 percent jump from the same period in 2020. During the quarter, Spire’s earnings from annual recurring revenue customers grew to $45.2 million, a 51 percent spike from a year earlier.

During the quarter, Spire launched its first two Lemur satellites with optical intersatellite links. Those communications links “will have a meaningful impact on the next generation of our constellation, enabling more secure data transfers, reducing data latency, and expanding the data and solution that we are able to offer our current and future customers,” Platzer said.

In addition, Spire continued to expand data gathering and analysis. The company, which provides weather data to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and to the Eumetsat, Europe’s meteorological satellite agency, reached its goal of capturing 20,000 daily radio occultation profiles for weather forecast models.

Spire’s planned acquisition of Canadian ship-tracking company exactEarth, a deal announced in September, is scheduled to close in late 2021 or very early 2022, Platzer said. Once completed, the acquisition would give Spire access to approximately 150 exactEarth “customers across numerous countries to whom we then would be able to offer additional Spire solutions,” Platzer said.

ExactEarth revenues for the third quarter of 2021, ending July 31, were $6 million, a 26 percent increase from the $4.8 million reported for the third quarter of 2020. Similarly, exactEarth revenues year-to-date rose 30 percent.

In addition to expanding its customer base, Spire sees significant value in exactEarth’s approximately 10-year database of maritime activity. With that database, Spire will be able to make “more efficient and effective use of AI and machine learning,” Platzer said.

Source: https://spacenews.com/spire-q3-earnings-call-highlights/