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Spire Global Announces Strong First Quarter 2023 Results

Spire Global, Inc. announced results for its quarter ended March 31, 2023. The Company will hold a webcast at 5:00 pm ET today to discuss the results.

“Coming off strong 2022 results, Spire has started 2023 with record results on the top and bottom line as we posted the strongest revenue and operating loss since becoming public,” said Peter Platzer, Spire’s CEO. “As we continue on our journey to profitability, our amazingly talented and reliable team has continued to weather the extremely challenging macroeconomic environment and deliver results that showcase the strength of our leveraged business model.”

“With revenue, loss from operations and adjusted EBITDA all improving sequentially quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year, Spire is continuing to make strong progress towards profitability and positive free cash flow in the next 10 to 16 months,” said Thomas Krywe, Spire’s CFO. “First quarter results exceeded our expectations and positioned Spire well to deliver on our full year financial forecasts. We remain focused on execution, delivering customer success and improving margins with scale and leverage.”

First Quarter 2023 Highlights

Financial:

First quarter 2023 revenue increased 34% year-over-year to a record $24.2 million, which exceeded our expectations. Revenue growth was driven by new customer additions as well as increased adoption by existing customers.

As of March 31, 2023, we surpassed $100 million of annual recurring revenue (ARR) by reaching $104.8 million, an increase of 28% from our ARR as of March 31, 2022.

Spire ended the quarter with 781 ARR solution customers under contract, a net increase of 48 customers from December 31, 2022, which exceeded our expectations. ARR net retention rate for first quarter 2023 was 108%, up from 106% in the same quarter a year ago. We believe both of these positive results are confirmation of our continued success on our land and expand strategy.

First quarter GAAP gross margin increased 11 points year-over-year and 5 points quarter-over-quarter to 57%. The gross margin improvement demonstrates our success in leveraging headcount and infrastructure costs across our 4 solutions.

First quarter GAAP operating loss was $14.5 million, an improvement of $5.5 million year-over-year. Non-GAAP operating loss1 was $9.8 million, a $3.0 million improvement year-over-year and better than our expectations as we continued to execute on our path to profitability.

1  Non-GAAP Financial Measure, please see section titled Non-GAAP Financial Measures for the definition of such measures and the reconciliation tables at the end of this release for reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP measure.

Business: 

During the quarter, Spire was awarded a contract extension by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) for commercial radio frequency remote sensing. The agency will continue to use Spire’s data to evaluate how commercial radio frequency will be integrated into its overhead architecture. The contract demonstrates the agency’s commitment to expand the acquisition and integration of commercial space-based data for situational awareness and to address new intelligence challenges. Two options were exercised, extending the performance period through March 1, 2025.

Spire recently announced a deal with Enqlare, who is using Spire satellite data to offer up-to-date vessel information and AIS positions to support freight buyers, port agents, ship owners and charterers with business planning and faster document creation. This data enables clients to unlock time savings using automated document generation and reduce laytime processing by up to 40 minutes. Enqlare is part of over 1,000 small and medium enterprise and start-up companies in the maritime space, a number that has been growing steadily in the double digits as the maritime industry is embarking on a digital transformation journey.

Spire recently announced a long-term agreement with ch-aviation to supply global flight analytics and insights that will enhance its airline intelligence database. The agreement includes access to Spire’s daily Flight Report, which aggregates hundreds of millions of satellite and terrestrial ADS-B positions to provide actionable flight, aircraft and airline data. Spire's Flight Report detects both scheduled and unscheduled flights occurring in near real-time across the globe, including in remote regions where it is not possible to track flights with terrestrial data services and traditional radar and radio systems.

During the quarter, Spire signed deals with multiple new customers that are using Spire’s data for marine domain awareness. The global maritime surveillance market is valued at approximately $20 billion and is expected to grow to approximately $40 billion by 2026. Additionally, Spire signed deals during the quarter for maritime data that is being utilized by new customers in the broader ecosystem, including trading firms, utility firms, and data intelligence firms with clients that include investors, operators, and government agencies. We are encouraged by the continued broad-based demand spanning younger, growing companies taking advantage of the maritime digitalization trend to established Fortune 100 companies.