Palantir is preparing to file its S-1 ahead of a potential September IPO

alexander karp palantir

The secretive data analytics firm Palantir is preparing to file an S-1 ahead of a potential September IPO, Business Insider has learned.
The company is working with banks to prepare a tender offer to clean up its cap table, according to Bloomberg.
Earlier this week, Palantir lowered the strike price for employees to buy their options in the company, sources told Business Insider.
Palantir declined to comment.
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Secretive data analytics firm Palantir is preparing to file an S-1 with plans to go public in September, according to a person familiar with the company, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the matter.

The timing could shift pending market conditions.

The IPO prep, first reported by Bloomberg, has been long anticipated at the 17-year-old company whose earliest backers include Peter Thiel's Founders Fund and In-Q-Tel, the investment arm of the US intelligence and defense communities.

A spokeswoman for Palantir declined to comment.

It's unclear which banks are working on the S-1. The company is still debating whether to have a normal public offering or to go public through a direct listing, according to Reuters.

Palantir is also working with bankers on a tender offer for private shareholders which would clean up its cap table, according to Bloomberg.

Palantir's turn to the public market comes five years after its last funding round, which valued the company at $20 billion. The company, which sells customized data analytics tools to corporations and the government, has struggled to live up to that valuation in recent years, as shares of the company flooded the secondary markets at a major discount.

Earlier this week, Palantir adjusted its strike price for employees down from $6.03 to $4.72 per share to lower the cost for employees to buy the options that are part of their compensation, Business Insider reported.

Earlier this year, secondary shares of the company regularly sold at a valuation between $8 billion and $12 billion, two investors told Business Insider in February. Around the same time, the secondary-share marketplace EquityZen offered Palantir shares for just $4.85, for an implied valuation of $8.9 billion, according to an offering viewed by Business Insider.

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