Planet Acquires Sinergise Business: A New Chapter in Earth Observation

Welcome Sinergise and the Sentinel Hub Community!

Planet has acquired the business of Sinergise, including Sentinel Hub, marking a significant step forward in our mission to make Earth observation (EO) data more accessible and impactful. We are excited to welcome Sentinel Hub users to the Planet community, and are eager to accelerate investment in Europe, the development of EO data applications, and solutions for the planet.

As the world faces increasingly complex challenges, the need for accessible and actionable EO data has never been more critical. Planet is committed to democratizing access to our data and, in line with our North Star vision, to build our Earth Data Platform. 

Over the past ten years, we at Planet have built an unprecedented set of EO data products to capture physical change as it happens. Sinergise on the other hand, has built an incredibly powerful platform to process and analyze EO data at scale. Together we believe we can accomplish more, faster – that’s why we are joining forces.

Planet’s Mission and the Earth Data Platform 

We have built a strong data business, with differentiated data at our core, and are continuously expanding our capabilities by adding new data missions and products. For example, Planetary Variables represent a move up the stack, from imagery to valuable information to make decisions. Planetary Variables result from complex multi-sensor algorithms combining a number of public missions (including European Union’s Sentinel) with Planet’s unique datasets. When combined with Sentinel Hub, Planetary Variables enable advanced time series analytics and change detection. The combination of Planetary Variables and Sentinel Hub will form the foundation of our Earth Data Platform, which we expect will power a community of partners to build a wave of impactful EO data applications.

This is why we are invested in the success of the Sentinel Hub community, as their success will foster the growth of these products and their use cases. Our objective is to create a positive impact through our business and the expanding EO data community.

Planet and the Community

We are excited that the Sinergise team has joined Planet. Sentinel Hub will continue to operate as it does today, including the ability for users  to sign up for free accounts. In the future, customers can expect expanded data sets and capabilities beyond what is currently available. Planet has an active community of users, including those in our Education and Research and NICFI programs, and we look forward to welcoming the Sentinel Hub community into ours. 

In addition to our user community, Planet has a history of supporting open source and open standards communities, sponsoring projects such as GDAL, OpenLayers, and STAC, or sharing large training datasets like the RapidAI4EO corpus and Planet Disaster Data. We will continue to support Sinergise’s open-source posture, including projects like eo-learn, and contributing to the digital public good with REDD+, Carbon Mapper and The Allen Coral Atlas. 

Planet in Europe: A Stronger Presence

Thanks to programs like Copernicus, Horizon, and Earthnet, Europe has developed a world class EO ecosystem. Planet has been an integral part of that development with the acquisition of the Berlin-based RapidEye team in 2015 and, most recently, VanderSat in 2021. Today, several mission critical teams at Planet are based in Europe. 

With Sentinel Hub now a part of Planet, two core pieces of our product strategy – Planetary Variables and the Earth Data Platform – are centered in Europe. We have also established meaningful business relationships with European companies and startups, such as BASF, EOMap, and LiveEO, and supported ambitious government programs and agencies, including NICFI, the Welsh Government, and Germany’s BKG. Today we are beyond happy to welcome the talented Sinergise team to our organization, another significant step we’re taking towards supporting scientific and engineering excellence in Europe. Our European team now exceeds several hundred members, and we plan to continue hiring and creating jobs. We are also adding two new offices in Slovenia and Austria.

The Future

By abstracting away the complexity of EO data, we are enabling companies to focus on building solutions for sustainability, security and more of the world’s most pressing challenges. We remain committed to fostering a thriving ecosystem of partners building successful businesses on EO data and services, many of which we expect will be based in Europe.

To all Sentinel Hub users, Planet customers, and everyone else – we encourage you to engage with us, provide feedback, and help us build the right tools to achieve your goals. Together, we can create a brighter, more sustainable future through the power of Earth observation.

Forward-looking Statements
Except for the historical information contained herein, the matters set forth in this blog are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the “safe harbor” provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including, but not limited to, the Company’s expectations with respect to the successful integration and anticipated impacts of its acquisition of the business of Holding Sinergise d.o.o., the Company’s ability to capture market opportunity and realize any of the potential benefits from any current or future product enhancements, new products, or strategic partnerships and customer collaborations. Forward-looking statements are based on the Company’s management’s beliefs, as well as assumptions made by, and information currently available to them. Because such statements are based on expectations as to future events and results and are not statements of fact, actual results may differ materially from those projected. Factors which may cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations include, but are not limited to the risk factors and other disclosures about the Company and its business included in the Company’s periodic reports, proxy statements, and other disclosure materials filed from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) which are available online at www.sec.gov, and on the Company’s website at www.planet.com. All forward-looking statements reflect the Company’s beliefs and assumptions only as of the date such statements are made. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements to reflect future events or circumstances.