Hey Snackers,
“Doesn’t feel quite right" — KFC, commenting on its "finger lickin' good" slogan. The chicken legend is scrapping the unsanitary 64-year-old slogan, at least while the pandemic continues. TBD whether finger lickin' will ever make a comeback.
Stocks jumped as daily coronavirus cases fell compared to earlier this month. Also: the FDA issued an emergency use authorization for a plasma-based COVID treatment. Reopening stocks like Delta and Carnival soared.
Luminar is going public in a $3.4B merger to sell "eyes" for self-driving cars
Incoming: triple cliché... Self-driving tech, a SPAC, and a Peter Thiel-backed startup — sounds like the perfect recipe for a summer 2020 IPO. Luminar makes lidar tech that allows self-driving cars to "see" their surroundings. The lidar method involves shining lasers at objects to measure their distances. By measuring the time a laser takes to hit something, lidar sensors build out 3D maps of environments (like the 405 at rush hour).
- Luminar is going public via SPAC merger. A SPAC is essentially a company without a company. SPACs go public for the sole purpose of one day acquiring a real company (in this case, Luminar).
- Luminar will be worth $3.4B after it merges with Gores Metropoulos (sounds like a Russian hotel, actually the SPAC). Gores stock jumped 8% on the surprise acquisition.
Take me to your lidar... Luminar is a 3-year-old company with a 25-year-old CEO. But it's trying to tackle a decades-old issue: how to bring autonomous vehicles to streets. Besides government regulation, there are 2 main obstacles preventing self-driving from going mainstream:
- Safety: Driverless vehicles are still sweat-inducing. Luminar is pitching advanced safety of its sensors, which identify objects from 250 meters away (even in the dark).
- Cost: Lidar sensors can cost carmakers tens of thousands of $$$ — Luminar hopes to differentiate itself by bringing down the price of these autonomous eyes.
Luminar has a unique go-to-market strategy... Self-driving peers like Google's Waymo focus on introducing robotaxis first — Luminar is focused on getting its sensors in regular cars first. While others see robotaxis as a gateway to autonomous domination, Luminar sees them as a longer-term play. Volvo will be using Luminar's sensors for hands-free highway driving in 2022 — it's also a Luminar investor. These high-profile partnerships could help Luminar's tech go mainstream.
Palantir's leaked IPO paperwork gives a look into its secretive business
Paging Carrie Mathison... We're all "people familiar with the matter" (#PFWTM) now that Palantir's IPO paperwork has been leaked. That's slightly ironic, since Palantir is known for its super-secretive ways and its ties to intelligence agencies.
- At a high level, Palantir is a software company that collects and synthesizes data for big clients. That data could allow a bank to spot the movement of criminal money, or help a government agency thwart a terrorist attack.
- Palantir filed to go public back in July, 17 years after its founding. It filed its IPO paperwork confidentially (of course), which means we didn't get to check out its financials. Until now...
I spy a mole... Palantir's S-1 filing got leaked by a shareholder to TechCrunch. A few numbers stood out to us from the screenshotted-leakage:
- $5.6M: Palantir's massive average revenue per customer. That's impressive, but a little less impressive when you consider...
- 125: Palantir's number of customers could barely fill the theater at a Mission Impossible screening.
- $742M: Palantir's sales for 2019, anticlimactically less than the ~$1B that has been reported for years.
Palantir has big eggs in a small basket... Its growth is highly dependent on a few massive players, which is risky. Losing even a few clients could hurt big. Out of Palantir's 125 customers, the top 3 make up over 30% of its sales. Over 90% of its sales growth comes from existing customers, the majority of which are government clients. Palantir's good at crunching data — not so good at crunching profit. It reported a $580M net loss for 2019, which was almost the same as 2018's.
What else we’re Snackin’
TikedOff: TikTok sues the US government over Trump's ban, saying it didn't get a fair shot to prove it's not a national security threat.
EnDowed: Salesforce, Honeywell, and Amgen will be added to the Dow index in a major shakeup (goodbye Exxon, Raytheon, and Pfizer).
3D-IPO: Unity Software powers 3D gaming experiences for companies like EA — now it's powering up to go public with an S-1 filing.
Sad: Delta is prepping to furlough almost 2K pilots in October when the bailout ban on airline job cuts ends — other US airlines might, too.
Luxe: Luxury giant LVMH and Tiffany reportedly extended the deadline to complete their $16B marriage (3 extra months to tie the knot).
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Tuesday
- Earnings expected from Salesforce, Intuit, and Best Buy
Disclosure: Authors of this Snacks own shares of Uber, Delta, and Google
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