WASHINGTON — As Planet announced it has completed its acquisition of rival satellite imaging company Terra Bella April 18, it confirmed that Google is now a shareholder in Planet as part of that deal.
Planet announced Feb. 3 that it had reached an agreement with Google to acquire Terra Bella. Google had purchased Terra Bella, then known as Skybox Imaging, in 2014 for an estimated $500 million. At the time, both Planet and Google declined to disclose the terms of the deal other than that Google signed a multi-year deal to purchase imagery from Planet.
The deal, though, was rumored to include Google taking a stake in Planet. In an April 18 blog post announcing that the deal had closed, Planet co-founder and chief executive Will Marshall confirmed that. “We’re also delighted to welcome Google as a shareholder and customer,” he wrote.
Planet spokesperson Rachel Holm said in an April 18 email that Google took an equity stake in Planet, in addition to the previously announced multi-year imagery contract. Neither company, though, has said how much of Planet that Google now owns.
The deal closed after receiving regulatory approvals from several federal agencies. “Over the last several weeks, we received all necessary regulatory approvals from NOAA, FTC and FCC,” Holm said. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration licenses commercial remote sensing systems in the United States, while the Federal Communications Commission licenses satellite communications.
The Federal Trade Commission, with the Department of Justice, reviews large acquisitions under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act for any antitrust issues, setting a waiting period for that review before such deals can close. The FTC issued “early termination” notices March 16 for Planet’s acquisition of Terra Bella and Google’s acquisition of part of Planet, ending that waiting period early and allowing the deal to proceed.
Planet will now work to integrate the high-resolution imagery from Terra Bella’s fleet of seven SkySat satellites with Planet’s own constellation of nearly 150 satellites that provide medium-resolution images. That fleet includes 88 satellites launched in February on an Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle.
“This ‘close’ is also the beginning—the beginning of a new chapter at Planet, and of a lot of work across our organization over the next year to make SkySat imagery available on the Planet platform,” Marshall said in his statement.
Holm said that a “significant portion” of Terra Bella’s employees will remain with Planet. The company, headquartered in San Francisco, will maintain an office in Mountain View, California, where Terra Bella was based.
