How Did Palantir Get Started?

Venture capitalist Peter Thiel founded Palantir ($PLTR@US) in 2003, creating its name from the all-powerful seeing stone in the Lord of the Rings movie. Management’s objective was to create software that can mine and analyze disparate data sets and find connections between them. After the 9/11 attacks, Palantir presented itself as a company that could have identified and stopped the hijackers and similar events. One of Palantir’s early investors was CIA’s venture capital arm, In-Q-Tel. For the first few years of operation, Palantir’s clients consisted mostly of government agencies and a few private companies. The company’s first product was Gotham, designed for government intelligence agencies and health organizations to fight terrorism and track infectious diseases. Palantir’s data mining played a significant role in finding Osama Bin Laden’s location. Palantir introduced another two products: Foundry and Apollo. Foundry closes the loop between analytics and operations, enabling organizations to make better decisions. Apollo provides a single control layer to ensure critical systems stay up to date and operate 24/7.