Very interesting company. I'm mostly intrigued by the weather/insurance services and feel Spire would benefit from a large insurance company (cough cough Markel) buying them and removing current leadership.
Net income margin of -110% on top of a huge pile of high-interest variable debt is pretty scary. With a limited runway, does this thing really have a path to survive? If honestly hard to see.
Tim - great write up. I’ve looked at Spire in detail too. Three concerns that have held me back for now. One you mention - Platzer and governance. Time will tell but if company succeeds he will be feted and vice versa. Second is sales speed. Unit economics are clear but we need more volume through the business to reach sustainability. Despite recent wins, other peers are reporting lengthening sales cycles (listen to Planet recent earnings calls) and Spire is path dependent given the leverage. Third is customer concentration and the nature of the weather data market where NOAA etc share data which limits economics in that segment. This will be solved as other segments grow. So I’m watching NDR and overall revenue growth closely and that is the bet you are taking here in my view. Btw, Planet also looks interesting, and is safer in my view given the near $400m cash, better governance, and better NDR. Their markets are not completely orthogonal despite imaging vs radio and maybe in the long run we see consolidation. Thanks for sharing!
Very interesting company. I'm mostly intrigued by the weather/insurance services and feel Spire would benefit from a large insurance company (cough cough Markel) buying them and removing current leadership.
Net income margin of -110% on top of a huge pile of high-interest variable debt is pretty scary. With a limited runway, does this thing really have a path to survive? If honestly hard to see.
This aged beautifully.
Tim - great write up. I’ve looked at Spire in detail too. Three concerns that have held me back for now. One you mention - Platzer and governance. Time will tell but if company succeeds he will be feted and vice versa. Second is sales speed. Unit economics are clear but we need more volume through the business to reach sustainability. Despite recent wins, other peers are reporting lengthening sales cycles (listen to Planet recent earnings calls) and Spire is path dependent given the leverage. Third is customer concentration and the nature of the weather data market where NOAA etc share data which limits economics in that segment. This will be solved as other segments grow. So I’m watching NDR and overall revenue growth closely and that is the bet you are taking here in my view. Btw, Planet also looks interesting, and is safer in my view given the near $400m cash, better governance, and better NDR. Their markets are not completely orthogonal despite imaging vs radio and maybe in the long run we see consolidation. Thanks for sharing!