Planet and dMY IV Announce Upsized PIPE – Additional $50 Million from CPP Investments
Planet Labs Inc. (“Planet”), a leading provider of daily data and insights about Earth, and dMY Technology Group, Inc. IV (NYSE:DMYQ) (“dMY IV”), a special purpose acquisition company, today announced that they 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.
About Planet
Planet is a leading provider of daily data and insights about Earth, committed to using space to help life on Earth. Planet is driven by a mission to image the world every day, and make change visible, accessible and actionable. Founded in 2010 by three NASA scientists, Planet designs, builds, and operates the largest earth observation fleet of imaging satellites, capturing and compiling data from over 3 million images per day. Planet provides mission-critical data, advanced insights, and software solutions to over 700 customers, including the world’s leading agriculture, forestry, intelligence, education and finance companies and government agencies, enabling users to simply and effectively derive unique value from satellite imagery.
About dMY IV
dMY IV is a $345 million special purpose acquisition company founded by Niccolo de Masi and Harry You for the purpose of effecting a merger, capital stock exchange, asset acquisition, stock purchase, reorganization or similar Business Combination with one or more businesses. Its Class A common stock, units and warrants trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbols DMYQ, DMYQ.U and DMYQ WS, respectively. More information can be found at www.dmytechnology.com.
About CPP Investments
Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments™) is a professional investment management organization that manages the Fund in the best interest of the more than 20 million contributors and beneficiaries of the Canada Pension Plan. In order to build diversified portfolios of assets, investments are made around the world in public equities, private equities, real estate, infrastructure and fixed income. Headquartered in Toronto, with offices in Hong Kong, London, Luxembourg, Mumbai, New York City, San Francisco, São Paulo and Sydney, CPP Investments is governed and managed independently of the Canada Pension Plan and at arm’s length from governments. At June 30, 2021, the Fund totaled $519.6 billion. For more information, please visit www.cppinvestments.com or follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter.
