Palantir Technologies Inc. (PLTR) — Fundamental Analysis
Snapshot & Big Picture
Palantir Technologies builds data integration and AI-powered analytics platforms primarily for government and commercial clients. Founded in 2003 and publicly listed in 2020, the company spent nearly a decade burning cash while building its Gotham (government) and Foundry (commercial) platforms, before more recently layering on its Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP). The story of Palantir in the numbers is a company that has made a decisive turn from deep operating losses to genuine, expanding profitability — and doing so while growing revenue at a pace that would be impressive in any software segment.
Latest Quarter Snapshot (Q1 2026 — Most Current Data)
The most recent quarterly filing (period ending March 31, 2026) represents the freshest available picture of Palantir's operations and is more current than the full-year 2025 figures.
| Metric | Q1 2026 Value |
|---|---|
| Revenue | $1.63 billion |
| EBITDA | $760.8 million |
| Gross Margin | 86.8% |
| Operating Margin | 46.2% |
| Net Margin | 53.3% |
| Current Ratio | 6.91x |
| Debt-to-Equity | 0.023x |
| Capital Expenditures | $7.4 million |
| CapEx-to-Revenue | 0.45% |
A single quarter with 86.8% gross margin, 46.2% operating margin, and 53.3% net margin is a landmark result for any software company. If annualized, Q1 2026 revenue of $1.63 billion implies a run rate approaching $6.5 billion — a significant step up from the $4.5 billion reported for full-year 2025. The balance sheet remains fortress-like, with a current ratio near 7x and virtually no debt burden.
Profitability — Multi-Year Trend
Palantir's journey from staggering losses to robust profitability is one of the more dramatic transformations in recent enterprise software history. The table below traces key margin metrics from 2018 through 2025.
| Fiscal Year | Revenue | Gross Margin | Operating Margin | Net Margin | EBITDA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | $595.4M | 72.2% | -104.7% | -97.4% | -$609.5M |
| 2019 | $742.6M | 67.4% | -77.6% | -78.1% | -$564.2M |
| 2020 | $1.09B | 67.7% | -107.4% | -106.7% | -$1.16B |
| 2021 | $1.54B | 78.0% | -26.7% | -33.7% | -$396.1M |
| 2022 | $1.91B | 78.6% | -8.5% | -19.6% | -$138.7M |
| 2023 | $2.23B | 80.6% | 5.4% | 9.4% | $153.3M |
| 2024 | $2.87B | 80.2% | 10.8% | 16.1% | $342.0M |
| 2025 | $4.48B | 82.4% | 31.6% | 36.3% | $1.44B |
The inflection is clear: Palantir crossed into operating profitability in 2023 and has since expanded margins at an accelerating pace. Gross margin has climbed from the mid-60s to over 82%, reflecting the scalability of software delivered at scale with relatively fixed engineering costs. The leap in operating margin from 10.8% in 2024 to 31.6% in 2025 — and then to 46.2% in Q1 2026 — suggests the business is entering a phase of strong operating leverage, where incremental revenue drops substantially to the bottom line.
Financial Health
Palantir's balance sheet tells a reassuringly clean story. The company carries effectively no debt — the debt-to-equity ratio was null (not reported or zero) for most annual periods through 2025, with a minimal 0.023x reading first appearing in Q1 2026. Liquidity, as measured by the current ratio, has improved steadily from 1.67x in 2019 to over 7x by 2025 and into early 2026, indicating the company holds substantially more in liquid assets than near-term obligations.
Capital Expenditure Trend
Capital intensity at Palantir is strikingly low for a technology company of its scale, and it has remained so across the entire history available in the filings.
| Period | Capital Expenditures | CapEx-to-Revenue |
|---|---|---|
| FY 2018 | $13.0M | 2.18% |
| FY 2019 | $13.1M | 1.76% |
| FY 2020 | $12.2M | 1.12% |
| FY 2021 | $12.6M | 0.82% |
| FY 2022 | $40.0M | 2.10% |
| FY 2023 | $15.1M | 0.68% |
| FY 2024 | $12.6M | 0.44% |
| FY 2025 | $33.9M | 0.76% |
| Q1 2026 | $7.4M | 0.45% |
CapEx-to-revenue has generally trended downward over time, from about 2.2% in 2018 to well under 1% in recent years. The brief spike to 2.1% in 2022 appears to have been an isolated year of higher physical infrastructure spending; it reverted promptly. This consistently low capital intensity is characteristic of a software-first business — Palantir does not need to build factories or massive data centers to grow, which means free cash flow closely tracks reported earnings. As revenue scales, the reinvestment burden remains minimal, amplifying the quality of the profitability improvement described above.
Growth
Palantir has compounded revenue at a remarkably consistent pace across multiple measurement windows.
| CAGR Window | Start Fiscal Year | End Fiscal Year | Start Revenue | End Revenue | Revenue CAGR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3-Year | FY 2022 | FY 2025 | $1.91B | $4.48B | 32.9% |
| 5-Year | FY 2020 | FY 2025 | $1.09B | $4.48B | 32.6% |
| 10-Year | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | Not available — Palantir's SEC filing history does not extend back a full 10 years from the most recent fiscal year end, as the company went public via direct listing in September 2020. |
The near-identical 3-year (32.9%) and 5-year (32.6%) CAGRs signal something unusual: Palantir has not only sustained rapid growth but has done so at a remarkably stable rate across different macroeconomic backdrops. Sustaining north of 30% annual revenue growth at the $2–4 billion revenue scale — where most software companies see meaningful deceleration — distinguishes Palantir from a large portion of its peer group. The Q1 2026 annualized run rate suggests that pace has, if anything, accelerated further.
Plain English Summary
Palantir spent years burning through enormous amounts of cash while building highly specialized data and AI platforms for governments and large enterprises. That investment phase appears to be decisively over. Between 2022 and 2025, the company flipped from operating losses to a 31.6% operating margin, grew revenue by roughly 33% per year, and did it all while barely spending anything on physical capital — meaning nearly every dollar of extra revenue flows toward profit. The balance sheet carries almost no debt and holds liquid assets worth about seven times its near-term liabilities. The most recent quarter (Q1 2026) pushed margins even higher, with gross margin touching 86.8% and net margin exceeding 53%, suggesting the business is entering a phase of compounding profitability on top of compounding growth. The key risks to monitor are whether AI platform demand remains durable as enterprise budgets shift, and whether government contract concentration creates revenue lumpiness — but based purely on what the filings show, the financial trajectory over the past three years has been one of the more impressive turnarounds in enterprise software.
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