$PL: Planet Labs Grew 58% and Guided Next Quarter Down $13 Million. The Q4 Math Is the Tell.
Planet Labs printed record revenue, a cash-generating first half, and an $865 million war chest, then guided next quarter lower. The implied Q4 number buried in its own full-year guide tells you whether this is a demand crack or a timing artifact, and the scenario zones price both.
Planet Labs closed Thursday's session at $18.35, down 8.2 percent, its lowest close in more than eight months. Three hours later the company reported the strongest quarter in its history. The stock reclaimed the entire drop after hours and is trading near $20.70 in Friday's premarket, up roughly 13 percent.
That whipsaw is why $PL is all over the trending lists this morning. But the tape action is the least interesting part of the print. The interesting part is a contradiction sitting in plain sight in the company's own guidance, and almost nobody is doing the arithmetic on it.
The quarter, verified against the filings
Every number below comes from Planet's 8-K press release and 10-Q, both filed with the SEC on September 3.
Revenue for the second quarter of fiscal 2027 (the three months ended July 31, 2026) came in at a record $116.1 million, up 58 percent year over year against $73.4 million a year ago, and well clear of the FactSet consensus near $104.5 million. It was, in the CEO's words, the company's fourth consecutive quarter meeting or exceeding the Rule of 40.
The profitability line moved just as hard. Adjusted EBITDA came in at a positive $13.9 million, more than double the $6.4 million a year ago. GAAP net loss narrowed from $22.6 million to $9.4 million. Non-GAAP earnings per share turned positive at $0.02. Year-to-date adjusted free cash flow is $28.8 million, with $68.4 million in operating cash flow. This is no longer a cash-burning space story; the first half of fiscal 2027 funded itself.
The balance sheet is the quiet headline: cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments of $865.4 million, up 219 percent year over year. Backlog stands at roughly $814.9 million and remaining performance obligations at $753.1 million. Recurring annual contract value is 98 percent of the book.
Why it's trending: the defense flywheel is visibly spinning
The quarter came wrapped in a cluster of contract news, nearly all of it flavored by the rearmament cycle. In August alone: a new $8 million award from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency for Planet's Global Monitoring Service, a German government tender for dedicated satellite capacity worth up to €25 million over five years, and a seven-figure agreement with an unnamed European defense and intelligence customer. Management also confirmed the satellite handover to the Swedish Armed Forces, the flagship proof that Planet can build and deliver sovereign constellations, not just sell imagery subscriptions. Add a national imagery program with Rwanda (Planet's first of its kind in Africa) and a renewed contract with a hyperscaler AI developer that uses Planet's high-resolution Pelican data to monitor data-center and chip-fab construction around the world.
This is exactly the story the market spent early 2026 paying up for. The stock traded at $6.44 a year ago, ran as high as $51.76, and had given two-thirds of that back by Thursday's close. An 8x round trip, two-thirds retraced, in twelve months.
The wrinkle the headlines are skipping
Here is what should stop you: alongside the blowout quarter, Planet guided fiscal Q3 revenue to just $101 to $105 million. That is a sequential decline of roughly $13 million from the quarter it just printed, and adjusted EBITDA is guided to swing back to a loss of $1 to $6 million.
A company growing 58 percent that tells you next quarter shrinks is one of two things. It is either the first crack in a demand story, the kind that turns momentum darlings into cautionary tales in two prints. Or it is an accounting artifact of how this specific business books revenue, in which case the market's reaction to the guide is noise and the sell-off into the print was a gift.
The company's own full-year guidance contains the answer. Buried in it is an implied fourth-quarter revenue number that no headline this morning is printing, and that number, not Q3, is what actually tells you which company you own.
The rest of this briefing is for paid members: the implied Q4 revenue figure hiding in the full-year guide and the quarter-by-quarter math behind it, how Planet's milestone revenue model actually works and what the Swedish handover did to Q2, the real share count after a $120 million summer ATM at $31.95 a share, the net-cash math on the $460 million convert, the catalyst calendar through December, and scenario-by-scenario price zones.
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