Planet clients

Delivered March 7th, 2018. Contributors: Ifeoma D., Catherine M., Rhys B., Emily H., Michael B. and

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Planet Clients: Agriculture & Civil Government - Part 1

Following the request for information on pain points and solutions for planet clients in the agricultural and civil government sectors, we have updated columns B-L, rows 3 and 4 of the attached spreadsheet with all relevant information. We have also taken great care to adhere to the specified font and font size, Arial 10.
FINDINGS
Our findings identified two (2) of Planet's clients in the agricultural sector, FarmLogs and Farmers Edge. They required "high-class farm field images" and" timely and accurate data" to improve operations, output and improve their decision-making process. The solution to ease their pain points was Planet's satellite imagery, which provided detailed in-field data backed by optical sensors, high frequency, and high-resolution broad field data collection, that aided in-season field management decisions and precision agriculture.

We also identified two (2) of Planet's clients in the civil government sector, the Government of Ecuador, and the Government of Queensland — Australia. They required rapid capture and transmission of earthquake disaster imagery, as well as high-resolution satellite image data. Planet provided satellite imagery using multiple satellites and frequent image mosaics multiple times a year to solve the problems faced by both clients.
Conclusion
Columns B — L and rows 3 & 4 of the attached spreadsheet has been updated with relevant information of pain points of Planet's client's, and the solution provided by the company to alleviate the client's problems.

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Planet Clients: Defense and Intelligence & Education and Research - Part 2

Planet's two clients for defense and intelligence are the Japanese Government and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. The company's two clients in education and research are the Department of Geography, University of California Los Angeles and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. All these institutions had specific pain points that Planet was able to solve for them.
MethodologyAs instructed, we began our search by downloading the e-book from Planet's website and looking at our specific areas of research to find the clients. We found that for defense and intelligence, the only client was the Japanese government and so we gave this as client one.  

For client two, the National Geospatial-Intelligence agency, we performed a thorough research in press and news articles and looked for other intelligence and defense clients. We were able to find a news article with information on a contract between Planet and National Geospatial-Intelligence agency.

For education and research, the website did not have an e-book but did point to reports done by educators at two universities. We reviewed the two studies and found that Department of Geography, University of California Los Angeles and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology have both used Planet technology as part of their research.  We, therefore, included these two as education and research clients and linked to their web pages.
ConclusionThe results of our findings including Planet's clients, the pain points they had and how Planet solved their problems have been summarized in a spreadsheet. Find the spreadsheet here.

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Planet Clients: Energy and Infrastructure & Emergency Response - Part 3

 Apple Inc. and Saudi Aramco are among Planet's Energy & Infrastructure clients that we have identified. Regarding Emergency Response, we have identified the International Charter for Space and Major Disasters and the US Government. Planet aided these institutions with pain points as described within the attached spreadsheet, updated accordingly with additional sources cited within. Please see notes below regarding our findings.
MethodologyWe focused our research within Planet's website and seeking our designated areas of the market. Using the gallery option on Planet's website, we determined both client 1 (Apple Inc.) and client 2 (Saudi Aramco) for Energy & Infrastructure.  

Regarding Emergency Response, we noted that Planet "supports the International Charter for Space and Major Disasters," and thus determined client 1 (International Charter for Space and Major Disasters). We reviewed Planet's provided gallery (case 1 and case 2) to deduce that client 2 is the US Government.
ConclusionWe have identified Apple Inc. and Saudi Aramco as among Planet's Energy & Infrastructure clients and the International Charter for Space and Major Disasters and the US Government as among its Emergency Response clients. We have updated the client information as requested within the attached spreadsheet.

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Planet Clients: Finance and Business Intelligence & Forestry and REDD+ - Part 4

 Planet Labs, Inc. provides its customers with daily satellite imagery and a cloud-based platform that they can be easily accessed and interpreted to meet the needs of their research and clients.  This write-up specifically addresses the problems that Finance & Business Intelligence clients and Forestry and REDD+ clients face and how Planet's products solve these problems.

In the attached Planet Customer Spreadsheet, there is a row for Finance & Business Intelligence customers and Forestry and REDD+ customers.  The Finance & Business Intelligence customers are Orbital Insights and Genscape, which were both looking for data that could provide them with improved insight into business growth.  An example of how satellite imagery was used for this purpose comes from Genscape, which monitors the Tesla Gigafactory for clients with Planet satellites.  There is growing interest in Tesla's viability in the stock market and watching physical growth is one way for clients to measure success.  The Forestry and REDD+ customers are the Brandenburg Forestry Authority and the Indufor Group.  These customers were looking for accurate satellite data that could monitor forests over designated periods of time.

The spreadsheet also gives detail on two Precision Agriculture companies that use Planet satellites to help growers monitor and assess crop growth: Farmers Edge and GeoAgro.  These are included in the row for Finance & Business Intelligence because they use Planet for business intelligence applied to agriculture.

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Planet Clients: Insurance & Mapping / GIS - Part 5

Planet closed its first insurance-related deal with Farmer's Edge in 2017. It also provides real-time mapping data to Dattabot, Google, and SpaceKnow, which they use for a variety of purposes. We have entered this information into the project spreadsheet as requested. 

Below you will find a deep dive of our findings.
INSURANCE
 Planet's Insurtech eBook did not provide any case studies that name their clients, so we researched Planet's press releases. The only article tagged "insurance" or "insurance tech" on Planet's blog was a case study describing how Planet's satellite imaging assisted Dattabot. However, this case study had little to do with insurance, and more appropriately belonged to mapping, as shown below. We were unable to locate any other case studies appropriate to insurance in Planet's press releases despite a thorough search. According to Planet's "Rocketing Into 2018" blog post, they only closed their "first deals in insurance, finance, and energy infrastructure" in 2017. The first insurance deal was not announced on Planet's press page, but we located the details off-site. 

In February 2018, Farmer's Edge announced that it had previously closed a deal to become "the exclusive distributor of Planet imagery" for agriculture (presumably in North America; see below). Having done so, Farmer's Edge "is entering a four-year, exclusive agreement with PartnerRe, a key reinsurance firm in agriculture and crop insurance." Planet's real-time satellite imagery can be used to provide insurance companies with instant access to, for example, "satellite and weather data and determine the true crop damage from a hail event" and "better fine-tune insurance products and help farmers get coverage for the long term, perhaps at a better price, or more coverage for the same money."

Given that Planet closed its first insurance deal in 2017, that Farmer's Edge is claiming exclusive rights, and that we are unable to locate any public source contradicting those claims or detailing a second deal, we understand this to be Planet's only insurance client at this time, and have put N/A in columns G-J in the project spreadsheet. 
MAPPING/GIS
 Planet's Mapping market page did not include a link to an eBook; we therefore conducted a search for relevant press releases.  

 Dattabot, an Indonesian Big Data Analytics firm, needed to map agricultural yields and potential risks in order to help Indonesian farmers in connecting with financial institutions. Having determined that mapping fields, potential flood plains, etc. with drones was too inefficient due to the area required, Dattabot partnered with Planet to provide the necessary mapping. This enabled Dattabot to "offer a better analytics solution for our agricultural partners and provide precise agronomic recommendations that can improve productivity," so that farmers might "improve their quality of life through greater output and better access to credit." 

Planet has also entered into a multi-year agreement with Google in which the latter purchases Planet's SkySat imaging data. This improves Google's own offerings as, for example, Google Earth only updated its images every few months. "Planet’s images are updated daily ... and are compiled into a cloud-based database, allowing users to compare changes to areas both large and small over time." 

Since we were only able to find one insurance example, we have added this third mapping/GIS example to the project spreadsheet: SpaceKnow, an "on demand geospatial analysis" company, lacks satellites of its own, and so "culls imagery from third-party providers such as DigitalGlobe, Planet, Airbus, and UrtheCast" to feed data to its machine learning programs for a variety of applications, including real estate, construction, and speculation. 
CONCLUSION
Since we were only able to find one insurance related example due to Planet only entering that space in 2017, we have instead offered three examples of Planet's mapping/GIS clients. We have entered the information for Farmer's Edge, Dattabot, Google, and SpaceKnow in rows 11-12 of the project spreadsheet. 