Planet and dMY IV Announce
Upsized PIPE - Additional $50 Million from CPP
Investments
September 16, 2021
Planet Labs Inc. and dMY
Technology Group, Inc. IV a special purpose
acquisition company, have received a
commitment for a US$50 million investment in dMY IV
from Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (“CPP
Investments”). Together with CPP Investments,
Cypress Point Investment Management (“Cypress
Point”) participated in a co-investment.
Planet recently entered into a
definitive Merger Agreement (as defined below) with
dMY IV to become a publicly traded company later
this year (the “Business Combination”). The
commitments by CPP Investments and Cypress Point are
on substantially similar terms as the $200 million
private placement (“PIPE”) investment initially
announced on July 7, 2021, in conjunction with the
Business Combination. The new commitments bring
proceeds raised in the PIPE transaction to over $250
million, which will satisfy the minimum cash closing
condition of the Business Combination. These
proceeds, along with over $345 million in dMY IV’s
trust account (assuming no redemptions), will be
used to fund Planet’s operations and support new and
existing growth initiatives.
“CPP Investments has actively
focused on identifying companies with technologies
or business models that help mitigate or adapt to
climate change,” said Leon Pederson, Head of
Thematic Investing, CPP Investments. “Planet’s
environmental use cases make it a good fit for our
Climate Change Opportunities portfolio and we look
forward to the company’s continued innovation and
growth.”
“At Planet, our mission is to
use space to help life on Earth by providing
customers with actionable data and solutions that
help create positive change,” said Will Marshall,
Planet’s co-founder and CEO. “The commitment by CPP
Investments is aligned with our goal to build a
strong business that simultaneously helps people and
our planet. We’re excited about this new partnership
and look forward to driving Planet’s continued
success as we prepare to become a public company.”
Planet’s fleet of nearly 200
earth imaging satellites images the whole Earth's
land mass daily. The company leads the earth
observation industry with the highest frequency
satellite data commercially available.
CPP Investments joins several
other leading investors committed to participate in
the Business Combination by purchasing shares of dMY
IV’s Class A common stock in the PIPE. The PIPE
investment is led by funds and accounts managed by
BlackRock, with participation from Marc Benioff’s
TIME Ventures and Google, among others.
dMY IV intends to file with the
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”)
an amendment to its Registration Statement on Form
S-4 (the “Registration Statement”) in the coming
days, which, when available, will contain Planet’s
financial statements for the six months ended July
31, 2021, and can be viewed at the SEC’s website at
www.sec.gov once filed.
The merger transaction, which
has been unanimously approved by dMY IV’s Board of
Directors and Planet’s Board of Directors, is
expected to close later this year, subject to
approval by dMY IV’s and Planet’s stockholders and
other customary closing conditions.