Palantir to go public, capitalize on Big Data and government contracts

The American big data company Palantir Technologies wants to go public. This was confirmed by the company, which collaborates with intelligence agencies in the fight against terrorism, after previous news reports about an IPO.

Palantir has filed for a listing on the United States’ financial markets regulator, the SEC. Because it is a confidential application, further information about the company from those documents is not yet being made public.

Palantir was founded in 2003 and uses complex software to process large amounts of data to detect terrorists and criminals, for example. The software is used by security and police forces worldwide. The company also provides software for the financial sector to detect suspicious transactions.

One of the founders of Palantir is tech investor Peter Thiel, a well-known Silicon Valley name. The German-American billionaire is a co-founder of the payment service PayPal and one of the first investors in Facebook. The American intelligence agency CIA is also among the early investors in Palantir.

Named after the dark crystal balls from the Lord of the Rings books, Palantir was valued at $ 20 billion in an investment round in 2015. It is unclear how much the company is worth now.