Spire Global (NYSE: SPIR): Radio Occultation Weather Data & Space Services

Who they are

Spire was founded in 2012 by Peter Platzer and a small team including Theresa Condor, originally under the name Nanosatisfi, with a premise as contrarian as Planet's but pointed in a different direction. Instead of building better cameras, Spire built satellites that listen — sensors that pick up radio signals already crossing the atmosphere and turn them into measurements.

The company listed on the NYSE in 2021 via a SPAC merger and then had a genuinely difficult stretch. Accounting issues on space services contracts forced a restatement of earnings in 2024, which risked breaching lender agreements. Management's answer was to sell the maritime tracking business — the AIS ship-monitoring line — to the Belgian data firm Kpler. That deal took months longer than planned, held up by a UK antitrust review and a dispute that ended with Spire suing to force completion, and finally closed at the end of April 2025 for approximately $233.5 million plus a $7.5 million services agreement.

Spire used the proceeds to retire all outstanding debt. Theresa Condor, a member of the founding team and previously COO, became CEO on 1 January 2025, with Platzer moving to executive chairman. The company today is smaller, debt-free, and considerably more focused than it was two years ago.

What they do

The core technology is GNSS radio occultation, and it is worth a paragraph because it explains the whole business. GPS and other navigation satellites constantly broadcast signals. When one of those signals passes through Earth's atmosphere on its way to a Spire satellite, it bends — and the amount of bending depends on the air's temperature, pressure, and humidity. Measure the bend precisely enough and you get a vertical profile of the atmosphere, anywhere on Earth, including over oceans where there are no weather stations. It works at night and through cloud, because radio does not care about either.

From that starting point Spire has built out several lines:

• Weather and climate — radio occultation profiles and ocean winds data, sold to NOAA, NASA, EUMETSAT and commercial forecasters. A one-year NOAA radio occultation contract awarded in 2025 was worth $11.2 million, alongside a $2.5 million NOAA ocean winds award and a €3 million EUMETSAT renewal.
• Aviation — space-based aircraft tracking for monitoring, safety, and route optimisation.
• Space reconnaissance — radio-frequency geolocation, including S- and X-band collection, plus detection of GPS spoofing and jamming. Spire has demonstrated geolocating targets from a single small satellite, a capability that conventionally requires several larger spacecraft flying in formation.
• Space Services — customers buy satellites built, launched, and operated by Spire, using its existing constellation infrastructure and ground network. Deloitte selected Spire to build eight satellites for on-orbit cyber and data operations, and the Canadian Space Agency's WildFireSat mission is being manufactured at Spire's expanded Cambridge, Ontario facility.

On deployment: Spire conducted six launches in 2025, deploying 39 satellites, and launched nine more in January 2026 — including hardware introducing optical inter-satellite links for high-speed data relay directly between spacecraft in orbit.

How they make money

Two shapes of revenue: recurring data subscriptions, mostly to government meteorological and defense agencies, and Space Services contracts where Spire builds and operates satellites for a customer. The second is lumpier and carries manufacturing economics rather than software economics.

The maritime divestiture makes the reported numbers awkward to read, so both figures matter. Full-year 2025 revenue was $71.6 million — down 27% year over year because maritime contributed $21.0 million before the April sale, but up 44% excluding maritime. Fourth-quarter 2025 revenue was $15.8 million, with the core ex-maritime business at $13.8 million, up 44% year over year and 36% sequentially, driven by NOAA radio occultation and ocean winds deliveries plus space services recognition. Cash and marketable securities closed 2025 at $81.8 million with no debt.

The first quarter of 2026 continued the pattern: revenue of $15.8 million, above the high end of guidance, down 34% year over year on the maritime comparison but up 13% excluding it. Net loss was $25.8 million and adjusted EBITDA was negative $10.2 million, also above the high end of guidance. Remaining performance obligations stood at roughly $223 million as of late 2025, of which management expected about $70 million to be recognised during 2026.

The honest summary: Spire is not yet profitable, its top line is still shrinking on a headline basis because of the divestiture, and the underlying business is growing at a healthy clip from a smaller base.

Where it sits in the value chain

Fig. — Spire Global's position in the space value chain

Spire's data business sits in Stage 6: Earth Observation & Geospatial Intelligence, but it is the odd one out in that stage: everyone else there is selling imagery, and Spire is selling atmospheric measurements and signal intelligence. That makes it complementary to optical operators rather than directly competitive — weather profiles are not a substitute for a photograph of a port.

Space Services then stretches Spire across Stages 2 and 4 at once. When a customer buys a Spire-built satellite, Spire is the manufacturer (Stage 2) and also provides the ground network and operations (Stage 4). Very few companies at this scale own that whole path, and it is the reason Spire can pitch sovereign programmes to governments that want a constellation without building an industry first.

The bigger trend

Two things are pulling in Spire's direction, and one thing is pulling against it.

The first tailwind is that weather data has become national infrastructure with a commercial supply chain. Agencies that historically flew their own instruments now buy radio occultation profiles from private constellations because it is dramatically cheaper per measurement, and forecast models improve measurably with more profiles. That is a recurring, contract-based revenue base with a public-good justification behind it — unusual and durable in the space sector.

The second is sovereign demand, which has accelerated sharply with geopolitical tension. Spire has said it is engaged with 17 countries across Europe, the Nordics, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific, on opportunities ranging from data services to full sovereign constellation programmes, and has pointed to NATO's commercial space strategy as a demand driver. The strategic logic for a mid-sized country is straightforward: RF sensing gives you awareness of ships, aircraft, and jamming activity for a fraction of what an imaging constellation costs.

The headwind is scale. Radio-frequency sensing is a narrower market than optical imagery, government meteorological budgets are large but slow-moving, and Spire's revenue base after the maritime sale is under $100 million against competitors several times its size. Being debt-free buys time; it does not by itself buy growth.

Related companies

Spire shares its value chain stage with the optical imagery operators, and its Space Services line puts it alongside the satellite manufacturers.

FAQ

Sources referenced

Company filings and investor relations (ir.spire.com) · Q4 and full year 2025 results · Q1 2026 results (SEC Form 8-K) · Completion of the Kpler maritime sale · Payload on the restatement and divestiture period