Software has become more commonplace than ever. Whether it's digitizing paper-based signatures with DocuSign (DOCU 0.55%), reimagining how we interact with our insurance carrier on Lemonade's (LMND -1.93%) mobile app, or changing the way we collaborate with our colleagues on Slack (WORK), software is impacting just about every aspect of our lives.
But this trio of software companies are not just disrupting the status quo, they are providing lucrative opportunities for investors. Let's look at why these three are growth stocks I'd buy right now.
1. DocuSign: There's more opportunity in digital signatures
DocuSign's journey to eliminate pen and paper signatures has turned it into a $1.2 billion annual revenue powerhouse, but it's really just getting started. With its 749,000 customers, management estimates that it has only tapped about 1% of the total number of businesses that could take advantage of its technology. With an impressive 45% year-over-year revenue growth rate in its most recent quarter ending July 31, 2020, it seems to be immune to the adverse economic effects of the coronavirus.
Image source: Getty Images.
With its upcoming third quarter estimated to have year-over-year revenue gains of 44% and its full-year revenue to be just under $1.4 billion, or a 42% year-over-year gain, the digital signature specialist is on tap to have a tremendous year. But the best is yet to come. It has numerous growth levers including recently acquired digital notary provider Liveoak Technologies, an artificial intelligence document analytics insights tool, and its robust end-to-end agreement management platform.
As this digital signature-turned-agreement cloud management software company goes after its massive addressable market, investors should consider getting along for the ride.
2. Lemonade: A disruptive approach to an age-old business
Lemonade has a lofty mission to "harness technology and social impact to be the world's most loved insurance company." That's right, it wants you to love your insurance provider. Lemonade offers renters, pet, and homeowners insurance in a digital-first approach. It takes less than two minutes to get a quote on your mobile device and a third of all its claims are paid instantly. This goes a long way to having its customers love its business, but there's more.
This tech-based insurance provider is registered as a B corporation and gives away its excess profits to charities selected by its members. So far in 2020, it has donated more than $1.1 million to member-selected charitable organizations.
With its tech-based approach, the company is able to offer lower-cost policies and serve more members per employee than typical providers. This is enabling the company to grow and scale its costs. Last quarter, the company posted $29.9 million in revenue, a 117% year-over-year gain. This revenue increase and cost-efficient scaling helped drive gross profits up 218% to $5.4 million in the second quarter.
Even though it's still not profitable on the bottom line, its $295 million in cash and marketable securities will enable it to continue investing in growth efforts for years. With trillions spent each year on renters, homeowners, and pet insurance, this upstart is just getting started.
3. Slack: It's not just an email replacement
You might be familiar with Slack as the team-based workplace messaging tool. But reducing your dependence on your email inbox is just the beginning of what's possible with this platform. As companies implement Slack for better collaboration, they find it has the ability to be a hub for its cloud-based tools. Slack's platform has built-in integrations with over 2,300 applications that enable users to initiate actions such as lookup customer data, start a video conference call, or sign a document with DocuSign, all from their Slack application.
In the face of the coronavirus pandemic, revenue growth has slowed, but is still a solid 49% year-over-year gain for its most recent quarter ending July 31, 2020. It's making significant inroads attracting large customers that pay more than $100,000 annually, growing to a record 985, a 37% year-over-year increase. These large organizations make up a significant 49% of revenue.
And the 20,000 new paid customers Slack added in the last six months (twice the number from the previous six months), will help provide a solid base of growth in the quarters ahead as they expand their footprints. Millions of organizations today depend on decades-old email technology, giving this innovative collaboration platform plenty of room to run.
The takeaway for investors
These three software specialists have a lot going for them. They're posting solid growth numbers in a challenging economic environment, still have a huge opportunity ahead in their respective markets, and have a disruptive approach that's winning and keeping customers.
Patient investors can do well by joining me as a shareholder. Buy one or all of these growth stocks today and hold for the long term -- you'll be happy you did.
