Palantir Moves Toward IPO with Project Maven Contract in Hand

A licensed financial advisor, Frank Cardia is the founder of Blue Sky Financial and the managing director of the Iron Edge VC Fund. A private equity venture, Frank Cardia’s firm introduces investors to late-stage, pre-IPO opportunities before companies go public.

One privately held company that Iron Edge VC currently offers access to is Palantir, which was established in 2003 due to PayPal’s urgent need to eliminate credit card fraud. Co-founder Peter Thiel developed proprietary loss-prevention pattern detection algorithms, and these were applied by Palantir in the government and defense arenas to preserve civil liberties while reducing the risk of terrorism.

In 2018, Palantir was reassigned a lucrative contracted role in support of Project Maven or the Algorithmic Warfare Cross Functional Team. Developed by the US Department of Defense, the project seeks to boost remote battlefield control and command capabilities through the aerial surveillance of targets. Rather than enabling AI to make critical decisions, the project enhances actionable intelligence. This is presented to human participants and allows leaders to execute military tactics in the most informed way possible.

One aspect of Palantir that has recently generated interest among the Iron Edge VC team is its profitability. In early 2020, the CEO of Palantir announced on CNBC that his company was moving internally toward an IPO, which represents a rare opportunity for investors.