Geospatial intelligence. It has become operational. One thing that we learned early on in the Ukraine conflict is how important this type of data is. And you know, Ukrainians didn't have some of this foundational capability. They had to use it from partner nations that could support them. And so by giving them these capabilities, it helped them stave off their adversary. Space is that next frontier. And there's a reason for that. And there's a reason, you know, people are looking at Golden Dome and concerned about things is because they understand that space-based and spaceborne capabilities to be able to deliver this ground truth are absolutely important and critical assets now to have great defense. And so I think what the world recognized is companies like Vantor can actually bring these capabilities to countries who don't have that foundational capability, and we're seeing this on the international marketplace. They're realizing they've got these gaps in capabilities and trying to go build a national constellation is hard. And so you can actually rely on the commercial companies that have this exquisite capability that we have and then relate to ground truth so they can actually solve multiple missions.
Dan, appreciate you being with us.
My pleasure. I'm glad to be here.
So when Advent and the board called you about running Maxar Intelligence, tell me a little bit about what was going through your mind.
Well, firstly, it was my foray into space, so it was quite an exciting call to say the least. You know, it was interesting when I broke it down. You know, I come back from a PE background and knew that they wanted a strong operator to come into the company. You know, clearly there were some challenges that were going on with some satellites on the ground that they wanted to get launched because we had capacity challenges and we also had some products associated to it. But as I came into the company, that was actually one of the operational capabilities that was just like, let's get this done and kind of move the company forward. What was really exciting actually was the mission and the focus this company and the employees have on the mission to serve their customers' needs, and there's such devotion to that cause. It became really exciting for me because the fact I went from a, hey, you know, really coming into the operational construct of really turning this company around that was actually already kind of a darling in the industry and the largest in the industry at what it did and well-respected, to really understanding that the foundation of this company was grounded on just some cultural beliefs that are incredibly strong and still today the passion and the heart and soul of the company. And so it's one thing from Advent to give me the call, it's another thing to really start to understand, really understand what a special company this was.
So, your background isn't in space and defense. And I mean, like you mentioned, you're more of an operator background, but tell me a little bit about what made you sort of the person, right? And talk a little bit about maybe some of the things that you've done that lent itself to what the condition of the business was when you took it on in November 2023. And also I would love to know what was kind of going through your own head when you were just like, okay, space, like, I mean, had that even been on your radar? Had that ever been an interest of yours outside of just maybe the general fascination people have with the industry?
Yeah, I think everybody's always fascinated with space. I mean, that's one of the things that I can hit you right away. But no, what was really interesting, if you look at my background, you know, infrastructure, data, application business, looking at efficiencies, run call centers and SaaS businesses. And if you look at what where Vantor was trying to do, or Maxar at the time, Vantor was going, was how do you actually take advanced capabilities that you're building on orbit? If you really think about it, it's a hardware business that's producing data that you need to turn into, that has an incredible moat, by the way, of foundational data that you're turning into, you know, some very resilient products. And you're looking at it and you're transforming a company that was selling imagery into a company that's selling software solutions and strategic solutions to an industry. That is something I was very comfortable with and that's something I've done multiple times in my career and also driving scale. That was really important too, is how do you actually scale out this company because it, you know, was very well established in the marketplace but it really needed, you know, some of the operational rigor to get it to where it needed to go. Coming into it, that was the part I was very comfortable with. Learning the science around the space side, that was actually something that was really exciting to me because the fact it is very unique and space is very hard, but also the uniqueness of Vantor is we have probably the most exquisite capabilities on orbit, which has given us probably one of the strongest foundational data capabilities in the industry as a whole and how you build products off that. So building Raptor, building Sentry, you know, modernizing our sovereign capabilities inside of our international customers became really critical. And ironically, that's stuff I've done, you know, from a terrestrial perspective in the past and bringing that from a space perspective became very natural.
So, I want to talk about what I bet is and will be the most controversial part of your tenure, which is the rebrand. And I do want to hear a little bit about, you know, I'm sure you guys have talked about this at length, or I know you've talked about this at length, both internally and externally. But maybe tell me a little bit about sort of the decision process, like when you told the team you guys were retiring the Maxar brand, which was, you know, at the time one of the most recognized names in commercial space, and maybe tell me a little bit about that process. Maybe who pushed back the hardest, and was there an argument where you were like, maybe we shouldn't do this? And then ultimately what helped you sort of realize it was ultimately the right decision?
Yeah, this was a discussion that happened early on at the board as we were getting our constellation up onto orbit. We have the capacity and we're starting to develop very, you know, really strong intelligence capabilities on the ground. If you really think about it, we're driving not just what we've been driving from an imagery and exquisite imagery on orbit perspective, but the foundational data and the ability to execute these applications on the ground and really do, you know, space to ground. That became really the narrative around what Maxar was becoming. When you think about space-based intelligence and driving these applications, you really need to start to differentiate yourself in the marketplace. There were a lot of pixel providers, a lot of space providers or sensors and stuff, but it was really the culmination of everything we were doing. And I think the market was really not, you know, adopting to the fact that these new capabilities were being delivered. So one of the first things we had to do is get that brand recognition of what is it we have become, why were people entrusting us from an operational perspective based on this data to make critical decisions to support their enterprise business or more importantly the warfighter. And so we had to shift the eyes a little bit and that was a debate we had at the company. The second thing is we had a manufacturing business called, you know, Maxar Space that was doing more communication type of satellites and stuff like that and that was really not the core of what we were anymore. And so we wanted to carve that business off and so we made this choice, let's look at a brand that really represents who we are today and then of course a brand for that space business, which of course became Lentez early on. I think we went through a lot of work, the branding work that you go through. We actually told our employee base months before we actually rebranded to get them bought into it. Yes, there was that, oh my god, we're Maxar. And then we reminded the employee base that they went through that with DigitalGlobe to Maxar when MDA bought them. And so there was this resolution of, oh my god, it did make an impact in the industry. We actually told customers early on, specific customers, and surprisingly our customer base was like, yep, we get it. And we've really had no pushback from our customer base because they understood the transition we were going for. They understood the sell-off of the Lentez business. And so I think that was something that kind of made that transition a lot easier was the customer acceptance. Yes, we knew we were moving from a brand that had great brand recognition, but we were going to be stuck. And if you think about the financial markets and you think about the future, the equity brand power of the company, you want to move it forward and not get stuck in some of the legacy. The employee base, I think that they've adopted it incredibly well. Are there people who still have that pride in Maxar? There always are. You're going to have that. And we still have to continue brand growth and clarification and stuff moving forward. That's part of the brand change, but it's just becoming more and more mainstream to who we are as a company.
Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, well, I want to talk a little bit about the Vantor-Lentez split, but before we do that, let's take a step back. Let's talk about Vantor for a second. Like, what is, you know, Vantor, historically Maxar Intelligence, like what are you guys selling and who are the key customers today?
Yeah, I mean, we're definitely well recognized by the US government and the international governments. Majority of our business is really supporting the defense and intel community. But we still do a tremendous amount of critical enterprise work. I mean, if you think about it, the largest mappers in the world are using our capabilities and it's really taking that space-based data and driving value to our customers. And it is really that ground control. It's really that ground capability that we're delivering now to all of our key customers. And if you think about it, we built this on one of the most incredible foundations of data over the last 25 years that anybody has in the industry, both a digital pair on 2D and 3D. So we have the largest 3D base map of anybody in the world. And the products and capabilities you can build off that are amazing. You know, everything from delivering autonomous warfighting capabilities to a drone by using, you know, to helping GPS-denied territories by using that landscape, incredibly important for 3D, or if we're looking from a Sentry perspective of delivering AI capabilities for insights to be able to give a lot more around site and object detection at speed so the analyst spends more time on solving problems for the warfighter than just looking through pixels. And so that's a major transition that we've done. But it's also about the ground controls. It's building the sovereign capabilities through our Tensor Globe to be able to have everything from, you know, strategically planning your constellation to be able to task your information to be able to meet the needs, or having the ability to have an archive of information that people can pull off of that is multi-sensor and shared data. Or what I think is really incredibly important is actually the fusion of data now because it's not just about our data, which is incredibly impactful in the marketplace, but it's also fusing other sensor data. So it's that ground control and delivering the solutions now to all of our customers that has become more compelling. And we're doing this now in, you know, if you think about the US government, we built this foundation about doing business with them both on the high side, low side, and being an unclass environment value to them. But we're also building these incredible sovereign capabilities for our international community. The international community has moved from open cloud environments to really focus on their sovereign data protection. We're the only company that can actually drive AI insights into air-gapped environments that customers are looking for now. So it's truly spaceborne capabilities all the way through that data distribution that you're seeing to our customers in protected environments. And that is really the envelope of what our customers are looking for today as they move forward.
So, I want to talk specifically about Vantage and Pulse. And particularly because 20-centimeter resolution, 15-minute revisit rates, small sats, right? It does feel like it's a response to the Planets and the BlackSkies of the world. Like, what drove the decision to ultimately enter that space?
You know, it's interesting. I actually think we've solved one of the biggest problems. First, which is, you know, if you think about the exquisite nature of our Vantage-class satellite that we're going to be building, and it's built on the backbone of the 30-centimeter capabilities that we built into the industry. You're probably aware those are not cheap investments. The cost of getting into that market is quite heavy. And it's still the primary requested capability that is in the industry. If you think about things like targeting or geo-registration or being able to really look at the exquisite nature of that data to support the warfighter, you're really looking at our exquisite class of capabilities. And yes, that constellation, the new constellation, will be able to visit 15 times a day. I know that we've got 15 twice in our story, but we got to fix that. It's 15 times a day, but our customers are also requesting, hey, we want to deal with latency. We want to deal with challenges. Now, even in our exquisite class, we've been able to get latency down sub-10 minutes in some recent testing. That is amazing to do inside the marketplace. But they're also looking for how do we actually drive more revisits and more capabilities. We're not chasing our competition in regards to looking at lower-cost satellites. We're looking at things like mesh networks, connectivity across our satellites so we can even reduce latency further to get them the higher revisit, use our exquisite capabilities to actually use geo-accuracy and make that next generation of capabilities even more accurate, more valuable to the industry. So we actually see our ability to move into that marketplace to be much more effective at using that revisit to help our products like in Sentry and others that the customers are looking for to really drive more ground-based data that's even more accurate in the industry. So we've solved the big hard problem and now it's going to allow us to accelerate and use other capabilities to complement that problem. I think our competition is still trying to figure out how to compete against the bigger problem and I think that's a major inherent value that we have.
What is the magnitude of cost on Vantage Pulse like versus, I mean, obviously, you know, Maxar is historically known to build very large exquisite satellites and, you know, Vantage and Pulse are quite different.
So very different. Yes. You know, the Vantage class is like our traditional class. You know, that is true investment what we're doing. I mean, if you think about it, like you said, 20 centimeters, or, you know, we're looking at the revisit range that it can do. We're also looking at point collects greater than we've ever done before. Area coverage greater than we've ever done before. The aperture size of that device is pretty significant to be able to do that. And so the technology of it is a much greater expense. The other, if you look at the Pulse class, we're looking at, and one of the values I think that our team brings is we really understand the physics of the optics and I think that that's something we've done, but we've also seen that we can do those optics at a much better cost-effectiveness to get multiples on site. You know, because if you want to have this true mesh network, you have to have the connectivity that's kind of following around the Earth at all times. And so you have this mesh connectivity, of course, connecting in some ground stations and it's just a cost difference in regards to that kind of bus structure that you'd have that optical mesh tied to. So yes, it's a much cheaper or less expensive investment per satellite, but if you look at the overall mesh network, it starts to rationalize the same kind of investment that you're doing on maybe an exquisite.
Yeah. Going back to Advent and their ownership now, they're a private equity firm and PE ownership tends to compress timelines and optimize for an exit. And obviously we've seen the sale of Lentez. So what has been the experience so far with Vantor under PE ownership and what are their goals for the business?
First off, it's been fantastic. Very, very patient.
By the way, my second question is rhetorical because obviously their goal is to make money.
Absolutely. They have their plans. They have their investment. That's, you know, like if you think about it, any shareholder to a company wants to have a good financial outcome to it. First off, from a company perspective, they're the very typical private equity that has an operational play that they run and stuff, but they've given a lot of latitude in regards to the innovation and the creativity of this company. If you saw recently, we were named in the top 10 of Time's Innovation, and that's because of the fact they've given us a lot of latitude to go and develop new capabilities like we're doing with Raptor, which was recognized for Sentry and Tensor Globe. At the same time, they've got the resources to help us really do a lot of things like how we do financial planning or maybe look at our equity debt structures and getting us prepared for what could be next as a company. I'm actually very impressed with the resources and the expertise that they bring to the table to help us all the time. So I think from the get-go they have been maniacally focused on helping us get the constellation out, you know, the new constellation was on the ground and now we're really thinking about what is the innovation and investments of the future to continue to strengthen the company and how do we use our equity because we are becoming much stronger financially. How do we use that equity as a value play to bring on more capabilities to the company and they're very active in supporting those ideas. Sometimes they're really active in supporting those ideas, which we actually appreciate. And they're like any shareholder, they're going to work with us on what the best outcome is. That could be a public offering, it could be an acquisition, and those are all the things that we're working through today.
Okay, hold that thought because we're going to come back to that sometimes. So, I know you guys have a number of partnerships. The one I do want to talk about is the Anduril partnership for the Army's Soldier Born Mission Command architecture. Tell me a little bit about how that deal came together and what it told you about what the Army actually wants to buy and also just the dynamics of your partnership with Anduril now.
Yeah, it's growing, which is very exciting for us. So if you think about it, we've been doing business with the US Army for some time in a program called One World Terrain, and that's really looking at our 3D data and how you apply that to mission planning or training simulation for the warfighter. It's a program that's been very successful with this and that's really talking about the power of our ground-based data, that foundational 3D data, and how you actually apply it to real-life scenarios and simulations. And the reason it's incredibly powerful too is you think about the warfighter, they have to be incredibly accurate about what they're doing. And when you have the geo-accuracy capabilities that we have, it's really powerful for how they can use those tools. You can't just use made-up data. I mean, it has to be very accurate, very spot-on for them to have mission success. Where Anduril came into the play was they've done a phenomenal job with their VR technology and I actually got to demonstrate it at our sales kickoff this year. It was fascinating to see how our 3D data is applied into their VR capabilities and you're actually seeing building elevations and all the different things. And it truly gives that virtual feel for the warfighter. But they came in, they brought that technology with our One World Terrain or our virtual technology and we applied it together and it was a great match. And I think that was the first time that we really saw how we can work with Anduril on many of their solutions that they're bringing to market and how our data sets and capabilities actually complement a lot of what they're doing from a hardware perspective. And so this was the first entree in the US government seems to be very pleased with the program at this point. I think it's demonstrating truly that virtual training that is going to help the warfighter in the end. And then how do we continue to expand that relationship are things we're working on with them now. They're an exciting company. And I think that we're excited about the new innovation paths we're going with and it maps to a lot of the disruption innovation changes that they're driving across the world right now.
Right. Okay. Now that's relatively new. When did you guys launch that partnership with Anduril?
I think it was about, I'm going to make a mistake, probably about six months ago.
Six months ago. Okay, got it.
Okay. And now, so talking about, I want to...
About a year ago. Okay. So I do want to switch gears. Talk about EOCL. So the Electro-Optical Commercial Layer, EOCL, that in effect kind of anchors your commercial imagery, or I should say it kind of anchors the commercial imagery industry. I'll make a bigger point on it. From now, that renews in 2032, correct? Tell us a little bit about that and from where you sit, what does the next version need to look like for commercial geo to be a real layer of national security infrastructure rather than just a budget line item that could get cut in the CR? And I think the last was, I think, a 10-year, nearly $4 billion NRO contract, right? I think it was like between Planet, you guys, BlackSky, and I believe those are the three if I'm researching correctly.
Yeah, I think that sounds accurate. I think what's really exciting about it, yes, EOCL has been a long-standing foundational capability for the government. You know, we are a huge portion of their, majority portion of their foundational mapping that we do for the US government, which is still a critical application. If you think about navigating ships, if you think about any kind of movement on the ground, you know, maps today are really important, especially as you're making decisions that could impact how your defense and intel communities work. But it's also important for, people forget that that's one part of the business, but we have a lot of civil services, a lot of local, state, and local services use it. We're used extensively in first responder issues like when we have floods and stuff, and that's how the information is shared. People don't realize that the EOCL contract produces a tremendous amount of data that is shared amongst a huge community including an international community and so it supports our allies and so forth. So as you can imagine in today's world, this is really important that we're seeing how geospatial is actually the foundation about how we actually look at intelligence around the warfighter. Yeah, but you know, EOCL is just one component of the government's complex ecosystem. What we're really excited about the next iteration that we're working on is how do we, one, get more exquisite, more coverage, but more importantly is how do we drive automation to support the analysts. It's still a very physically demanding world about how they actually apply these things. And so we're working with the government on how do you actually drive AI? How do you actually drive solutions that could actually drive more automation decision-making? This is a cultural change in the government. This is why I'm actually kind of excited about the work that Hegseth is doing in regards to acquisition reform. But acquisition reform without cultural change is going to be one of the biggest gaps that we're going to see with the US government moving forward. And they got to trust the data. You know, they have to trust how we actually are stitching this stuff together and bringing these advanced capabilities together. So I think you'll see the next iteration of relationships and contracts really start to focus on the blend of, yes, the foundational capabilities that we bring because data is data, changes are changes, objects are objects, but how do we drive more automation in that and how do we drive more efficiency into the government by using these contracts to bring new capabilities. And there is a lot of push right now about what does that next innovation capability play in, and that's where commercial just makes a huge difference because we are actually moving a lot faster than they can move and just need to apply that into some of these new ways that they consume product.
Now, this is to kind of maybe touch on your cultural point a bit. So this is slightly before your time, but Ukraine made commercial imagery famous in a lot of ways. And there's that famous Maxar image of the Russian convoy outside Kyiv. It was practically on every front page in 2022. The impact on the average consumer reader, that was pretty significant, right? Everyone could see what commercial imagery illuminated. I am curious, was there a cultural impact within the government customer that that moment created that you've seen since the Ukraine days? And now obviously we have a conflict in the Middle East with Iran. Maybe talk a little bit about that as well. Like how does the Iran engagement tell you about how commercial intelligence is being woven into operations today?
Yeah, I think, first off, obviously without crossing any lines, thank you. First off, I think let's step back and understand what we learned about these environments, right? So first off, geospatial intelligence has been used for everything from target assessment to post-damage assessment, and it has become operational. And I think that's one thing that we learned early on in the Ukraine conflict is how important this type of data is. And Ukrainians didn't have some of this foundational capability. They had to use it from partner nations that could support them. And so by giving them these capabilities, it helped them stave off their adversary and it continues to do that. But the other things that we've learned is how the warfighter is fighting today. And this is actually resonating back into even the most recent conflict, which is autonomous capabilities are becoming the foundation for war. And so what did we learn? Well, we learned that GPS-denied is a concern. And so we had to come up with solutions that help the autonomous vehicles be able to fly without being disrupted and or complete their missions. And you do that by using geospatial data. Use that 3D data like we're doing with our Raptor product. But more importantly, we're also realizing how important it is to get information into the hands of the actual...
war fighter at speed, you know. So, how do you actually get it from collection to, you know, deal with that latency and get it into the war fighter and doing that in, you know, you know, a couple hours versus what used to be a couple days? That is, you know, life-changing for for them. And so, I think what the world recognized is companies like Vantor can actually bring these capabilities to countries who don't have that foundational capability. And we're seeing this on the international marketplace. This is why we're seeing the international market grow is they're realizing they've got these gaps and capabilities and try to go build a national means of constellation is hard. And so you can actually rely on the commercial companies that have, you know, this exquisite capability that we have and then relate those, this ground truth that we try to, you know, we need to deliver and so they can actually solve multiple missions.
Parlay that straight into what we're seeing in the Iran conflict. We've got a lot of customers of ours who are, you know, in that region and they are building out their capabilities and relying on commercial to be able to have that same ground truth to be able to make the same decisions and they're learning through, you know, how, you know, the warfare is today. And actually I believe that they're actually seeing the Ukrainians are helping them, you know. So we're really seeing that important value of, you know, the geospatial intelligence, you know, how it actually plays in today's modern warfare and it is a critical henchman. You probably heard, you know, space is kind of that next frontier and there's a reason for that and there's a reason, you know, people are looking at Golden Dome and concerned about things is because they understand that space-based and spaceborn capabilities to be able to deliver this ground truth is, you know, absolutely important and critical assets now to have great defense.
Yeah, how does Vantor fit into the Golden Dome architecture?
You know, we've actually been doing programs for years that launch protections and of course the NEI monitoring that we do and I'd love people have seen some of the recent imagery we've been taking of, you know, the Chinese capabilities and our capabilities and so I think that we've actually been building capabilities for some time that support. And if you think about Golden Dome as an architecture, it's actually you pulling multiple pieces together and under, you know, Space Force right now on what that all the different pieces that need to happen. And so as we make investments, you know, some of our programs will be pulled right to some of those capabilities and then of course we're excited about some of the newer things that they're looking for that we're going to be investing in. And you know, the government is actually, you know, through their office of strategic sourcing, you know, they're looking at ways to invest in companies like that to support Golden Dome and we're hoping to be able to take advantage of that as well to support Space Force's direction.
