Palantir files for an IPO, one of biggest since Uber

Palantir Technologies, a Palo Alto data analysis company, has filed for an initial public offering, setting up one of the largest public listings of a technology startup since Uber’s IPO last year.

Palantir is one of the tech industry’s most valuable private companies, with a valuation of $20 billion. Founded in 2003 by Peter Thiel, Joe Lonsdale, Nathan Gettings, Steven Cohen and Alex Karp, who serves as CEO, the company began working with governments, law enforcement and the defense industry to analyze and process their data, but has expanded into other areas.

Palantir has attracted more than $3 billion in venture capital funding from investors including InQTel, the investment arm of the CIA; Founders Fund, Thiel’s investment firm; Fidelity; and Tiger Global Management.

Despite persistent speculation about its prospects as a public company, Palantir had avoided listing its shares, in part because of the secretive nature of its business. A public listing would reveal a fuller picture of Palantir’s work, particularly with government agencies, for the first time.

“The minute companies go public, they are less competitive,” Karp said in 2014.

More recently, Palantir has taken steps to prepare for an IPO. California requires companies to have one woman on their boards in order to go public, and in June, Palantir added its first, Alexandra Wolfe Schiff, a former Wall Street Journal reporter. Spencer Rascoff, a tech executive, and Alexander Moore, an early Palantir employee, have joined the board as well.

If completed, the listing will be part of a wave of initial public offerings by tech companies. New offerings had dried up in recent months because of volatility caused by the coronavirus pandemic. But in June, with the stock market booming again and some companies in a position to benefit from changes in consumer behavior, the IPOs came back in full force.

Stock prices of companies that have recently gone public have soared. Last week, shares of Lemonade, an insurance startup, more than doubled on their first day of trading. Investors also embraced the IPOs of car sales startup Vroom and sales software company ZoomInfo.

Airbnb, the $31 billion San Francisco vacation rental company whose business has been pummeled by the lack of travel during the pandemic, has also not ruled out going public this year.