A marathon (4/01/22)

Good morning, and happy Friday. Apologies for the slight delay in today's Payload reaching your inbox. Quick reminder: We'll be at Space Symposium in Colorado next week. Reach out if you'd like to say hi and meet the team. 

In today's edition...📊 SPAC results📊 SPAC results Pt. 2 📊 SPAC results Pt. 3👀 The SEC would like a word

Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here. 

Planet Results

Planet (NYSE:PL) booked $131.2M in revenue last year, the company said yesterday while reporting Q4 & FY 21 financial results. The planet-scanning company is growing at a healthy clip: 2021’s results represent a 16% jump over 2020. 

• Q4 was Planet’s strongest quarter of the year, with $37.1M in revenue (up 23% YoY). 

• Planet grew its customer base by 25% YoY to 770, including a 38% growth in customers with $1M+ contracts.

• Half of Planet’s customers are based in North America. And just over 50% of the company’s business is with government and military users. 

• Gross margins grew to 37% (up from 23%).

• Planet ended 2021 with $491M cash on the balance sheet.

All grown up: Hatched in 2012 by a trio of former NASA scientists, Planet set itself apart by leveraging new compact satellite form factors, software-first design principles, and “agile development.”

Planet de-SPAC’d in late December. Now, as a public company, Planet pitches itself as the “Bloomberg terminal” for all types of Earth data. It wants to command software valuation multiples, and breaks out metrics you wouldn't traditionally see from a space player. In addition, the company has likely received an unprecedented boom in interest and exposure, due to its role as a provider of imagery of Ukraine.  

Looking forward: For 2022, Planet predicts a 30–45% jump in revenue and 43–50% non-GAAP gross margins. 

Redwire Results

Redwire Space (NYSE:RDW), a space infrastructure conglomerate, released its FY2021 and Q4 financial results after the bell on Thursday. The sixth in the rush of space companies that de-SPAC’d in 2021, Redwire began trading on the NYSE in September.

The company dabbled on a few key business updates, including its Nov. acquisition of 3D bioprinting company Techshot and partnership on Orbital Reef. By the numbers:

• $137.6M in revenue over 2021, up 237% YoY

• Net loss of $61.5M, 328% higher than in 2020

• Adj. EBITDA of $1.2M

• $20.5M in cash and cash equivalents as of Dec. 31, 2021

• Backlog of $271.6M

This year…Redwire had components flying on 12 launches. It has delivered the first of three roll-out solar arrays for the ISS. Redwire products are manifested on 8 confirmed launches this year, and the list is likely to grow in the coming months. Finally, the company is guiding 2022 revenue to $165M–$195M. 

A picks and shovels business? Redwire’s tech portfolio—power generation, 3D printing, deployable structures, avionics, advanced payloads, space biotechnology, and more—”are the building blocks necessary for the future space economy,” CEO Peter Cannito said.

+ Market data: Redwire is leading the pack of space SPACs by stock performance this year. $RDW closed March up ~57%—and it’s up ~26% YTD. 

Best of the Rest

Thursday, as you can already see, represented a marathon of space SPAC financial results. We’ve pulled together high-level updates from the other two companies we were watching, with more details available on our website.

Astra (NASDAQ:ASTR): Astra's stock had a turbulent 2021, but the company now has two successful orbital launches to show investors. The launcher, which de-SPAC’d in July 2021, reported a net loss of $257.8M in 2021 and $325M in cash and cash equivalents as of Dec. 31. The stock is down ~44% YTD but ended March up ~$14%. Read more here.

AST SpaceMobile (NASDAQ:ASTS): The $1.8B Texas company and space-based cell phone network developer joins Redwire as an outperformer this year, up ~26% YTD and finishing March up ~41%. The company said yesterday that it's nearing completion of final testing and integration for the BlueWalker 3 test satellite. Read more here.

So, Uh, About All These SPACs...

…the SEC would like a word.

SPACs, short for special purpose acquisition corporations, are in the top five percentile of words used in this newsletter. Today, they make up approximately 100% of Payload.

Driving the news this week

Wednesday, the SEC said it intends to step up scrutiny of SPACs. The commission voted 3-1 to advance rules that would raise reporting requirements and add new investor protections. If passed, the rules would…

1. Mandate disclosures about SPAC sponsors, conflicts of interest, and sources of dilution beyond what’s required today. 

2. More closely harmonize required reporting of target companies and SPAC shells with what’s required in S-1 filings (the forms for an IPO).

3. The rules would remove "safe harbor protection around forward-looking statements, allowing investors to sue over allegedly misleading projections," per PitchBook, and "allow investors to more easily sue entities involved in blank-check deals."

4. This one’s the kicker…“The new rules would address issues relating to projections made by SPACs and their target companies,” the SEC said. 

In Other News

• Russia apparently shelled a Red Cross facility in Mariupol, which can be seen in Planet and Maxar imagery. 

• NASA human spaceflight lead Kathy Lueders said the US and Russia are “moving toward” an agreement to extend the ISS’s lifespan through 2030. 

• Blue Origin launched another set of passengers on NS-20. 

• SpaceX and NASA’s Crew-4 launch slipped a day to April 20, due to a jam-packed launch schedule this month.

• The Philippines is working to register Starlink service in the country.

• Mark Vande Hei is safely back in the US following his return from the ISS.

• ESA’s P120C solid rocket motor, to be used on the upcoming Vega C and Ariane 6 rockets, has entered production.

The View from Space

ESA's Solar Orbiter has released a super-high-resolution image of the Sun, made from a composite of 25 images taken March 7, and we can't stop looking. That's the Earth for scale in the top right corner. Check out the full resolution image.