Ranging from two stocks set to benefit from long-term megatrends, to a boring-looking land trust offering surprising growth, to a small cloud company happily competing against its hyperscale peers, these four stocks furnish growth opportunities in different forms.
Powered by unique operations, CrowdStrike (CRWD -0.68%), Progyny (PGNY 0.62%), Texas Pacific Land (TPL 0.20%), and DigitalOcean (DOCN 0.95%) make for an odd-looking basket of growth stocks, yet offer market-beating potential.
Let's dive in and see what makes these four businesses stand out as they continue writing their one-of-a-kind growth stories.
1. CrowdStrike
According to IDC, cloud-based security provider CrowdStrike boasts an 18% share of the endpoint security market, despite only being founded in 2011. This ascension to the leadership position in its market highlights the incredible uptake its Falcon platform has seen.
With 90% of successful cybersecurity attacks and 70% of data breaches originating from endpoints (laptops, servers, etc.), CrowdStrike's extended detection and response abilities have been a no-brainer for many enterprises. Further demonstrating the company's dominance across the security market are its numerous awards, No. 1 rankings, and leadership titles in endpoint security from industry analysts IDC and Gartner, and third-party testing company Mitre.
However, as impressive as these titles are, CrowdStrike's ongoing machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) make it a winner for the long haul.
The company feeds its AI-powered threat graph by accumulating 7 trillion cybersecurity events weekly. This creates a potent network effect that becomes more robust with each new customer, allowing the platform to become smarter with each signal it learns from. Then, as the platform becomes more intelligent, it attracts more customers, creating a flywheel effect that drives growth -- as evidenced by CrowdStrike's nearly 800% rise in sales over the last five years.
Now counting 70 of the Fortune 100 as customers, CrowdStrike looks to build out its 23 modules to extend its growth. Posting a dollar-based net retention rate (DBNR) above 120% for 20 straight quarters, the company has proven capable of building deeper relationships with its customers. DBNR measures how much a company's existing customer base spends from one year to the next -- with a mark above 120% considered excellent -- making CrowdStrike's run of organic growth impressive.
Currently trading at a price-to-sales (P/S) ratio of 13, the company's lower-than-ever valuation is still not cheap -- yet its undeniable growth prospects and importance to its customers make it a perfect lifelong holding for investors to add to over time.
2. Progyny
Counting 370 clients as customers -- and covering 5.4 million lives with its fertility benefits -- Progyny is an easy company for investors to root for over the long haul. By delivering healthier pregnancies, a more efficient prescription experience, and healthier babies, Progyny helps its enterprise clients keep employees happier and less stressed over increasingly common fertility issues.
Currently, one in five women struggle with fertility. Before Progyny's existence, couples had limited medical or insurance options to choose from as they faced this challenge. By creating the first full suite of family building solutions, the company's budding network of providers has become a no-brainer for enterprises looking to attract and retain employee talent.
Highlighting this point, a recent survey showed that 46% of employees today would forgo a pay raise to receive fertility benefits. With any luck, this percentage of employees willing to make such a sacrifice should prove unnecessary, as businesses enrolled in Progyny's benefits experience a roughly 25% cost reduction -- making it a win-win for everyone.
Growing revenue by 68% in the fourth quarter of 2022 and guiding for approximately 29% growth in 2023, Progyny's high customer satisfaction grades and fair P/S ratio of 4 combine to make it an excellent buy-and-hold forever selection.
3. Texas Pacific Land
While a company that owns 847,000 acres of land in West Texas may not scream "growth stock," the fact that its revenue and free cash flow (FCF) have both risen over 2,000% in the last decade does.
TPL Free Cash Flow data by YCharts
Delivering a total return north of 25,000% since the turn of the century, Texas Pacific is a cash-generating juggernaut, sporting a FCF margin of 67% in 2022.
Generating 76% of its revenue from fees and royalties related to the oil and natural gas production on its acreage, Texas Pacific considers itself an "ETF of the Permian Basin." Furthermore, the company generates 24% of its sales from fees related to providing brackish (untreated) water for drilling, treated water, and saltwater disposal on its land.
What makes Texas Pacific attractive to investors, however, is its estimation to have around 14 years' worth of oil inventory on its acreage with a break-even point below $40 per barrel. With crude oil prices around $75, Saudi Arabia's oil production cut through 2023, and uncertainty surrounding the global energy scene, Texas Pacific is well positioned to thrive.
Trading at 27 times FCF and famous for returning the vast majority of its cash to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases, investors could gain valuable exposure to the energy industry through this lesser-known company.
4. DigitalOcean
Similar to how Shopify helps entrepreneurs launch their product ideas, DigitalOcean helps developers at small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) simplify their cloud operations and focus on company functions. Home to more than 600,000 customers, DigitalOcean provides cloud-based infrastructure-as-a-service and platform-as-a-service options to its (generally) smaller customers.
These cloud-based offerings appeal to SMBs compared to traditional hyperscalers due to their lower up-front costs, increased flexibility, better scalability, and pay-as-you-go pricing model. Growing sales by 36% in Q4 -- and with its DBNR growing from 103% in 2020 to 115% in 2022 -- DigitalOcean is proving that its focus on supporting small customers is a continued success.
Better yet, the company generated positive FCF in Q4, even after accounting for stock-based compensation. This points to the possibility of incoming GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) profitability in 2023 -- making its near-all-time low P/S of 5.6 promising to buy-and-hold forever investors.
DOCN PS Ratio data by YCharts
