Palantir Technologies

Palantir Technologies is a private American software and services company which specializes in big data analytics. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, the company is known for two projects in particular: Palantir Gotham and Palantir Metropolis. Palantir Gotham is used by counter-terrorism analysts at offices in the United States Intelligence Community (USIC) and United States Department of Defense, fraud investigators at the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, and cyber analysts at Information Warfare Monitor, while Palantir Metropolis is used by hedge funds, banks, and financial services firms. The company gets its name from The Lord of the Rings, as a palantír was an object that could be used to communicate to or see far away parts of the world. Translated from Tolkien's constructed language of Sindarin, it means "that which looks far away."

Founded in 2003 by Peter Thiel, Nathan Gettings, Joe Lonsdale, Stephen Cohen, and Alex Karp, Palantir's original clients were federal agencies of the USIC. It has since expanded its customer base to serve state and local governments, as well as private companies in the financial and healthcare industries. Karp, Palantir's chief executive officer, announced in 2013 that the company would not pursue an IPO, as going public would make "running a company like ours very difficult".The company was valued at US$9 billion in early 2014, with Forbes stating that the valuation made Palantir "among Silicon Valley's most valuable private technology companies". As of December 2014, Peter Thiel was Palantir's largest shareholder. In January 2015, the company was valued at US$15 billion after an undisclosed round of funding with US$50 million in November 2014. This valuation rose to US$20.33 billion in late 2015 as the company closed an $880 million round of funding. Palantir has never reported a profit, and in 2018 Morgan Stanley valued the company at $6 billion.