To turn a small sum into $1 million, growth is the most important metric to consider. Companies that can sustain a high rate of revenue growth over many years, ideally decades, are well on their way to rewarding shareholders with huge returns.
How you get to $1 million depends a lot on how much you have to invest. If you're managing a large portfolio and can invest $50,000 in a single stock, you would need to earn about 16% compound annual returns to grow it to $1 million in, say, 20 years.
However, it would take a 26% annualized return to turn $10,000 into $1 million over 20 years, which is more difficult to achieve but can be done if you invest in the right stocks. Over a long period of time, stocks more or less follow the growth of the underlying company. Therefore, if you have a small sum of money, you want to hone your search to companies that are growing their annual revenues over 20% per year.
That said, both of the companies we'll look at below are growing their revenues at 20% or more right now. What's more, they are both very small compared to the markets they are growing into, which raises the chances of achieving millionaire-making returns.
1. C3.ai
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a ripe market to look for stocks that could soar in value in the coming decades. Of course, this is evident by the robust growth some companies in the space like C3.ai (AI 2.08%) are experiencing.
C3.ai offers a suite of enterprise AI and generative AI applications to help companies aggregate their data and quickly find the right information to make better decisions. It's used by companies in various industries, but the U.S. government makes up half of its annual bookings. However, C3.ai is seeing growing interest in companies across a broad range of industries, which will lead to less dependence on government spending over the long term.
After transitioning its monetization strategy to a pay-as-you-go pricing model, revenue growth has been accelerating over the last year. The top line grew 20% year over year in the first quarter, marking the fifth consecutive quarter of improving growth.
NYSE: AI
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Growth could continue to accelerate in the near term. Management reported seeing substantial interest in its generative AI applications, where inquiries have exploded from 10,500 in February to nearly 50,000 through the first quarter. Company guidance for fiscal 2025 (ending in April) calls for sales to increase between 19% to 27% year over year.
Spending on generative AI is growing exponentially and is expected to make up a growing portion of total AI spending in the coming years. IDC projects the generative AI market to be worth $26 billon by 2027, which is a huge opportunity for C3.ai that generated just over $311 million in trailing-12-month. It's possible it could sustain around 20% or better annual revenue growth over the next few decades.
2. SoundHound AI
SoundHound AI (SOUN 2.24%) is a promising small-cap stock if you're looking for big return potential. It is a leading provider of AI voice solutions that helps other companies improve productivity and customer service, and its current rate of growth points to a lucrative opportunity for investors.
Revenue grew 73% year over year in the first quarter. SoundHound's growth has really started to take off over the last few years, which is a good sign that companies are placing a higher value on voice AI technology.
NASDAQ: SOUN
Key Data Points
Keep in mind that SoundHound is a tiny company in Wall Street's world. Its revenue totaled just $11.6 million last quarter, but that's what makes SoundHound an exciting opportunity. Many industries are expected to adopt automation solutions in the coming years, which could drive the market for voice AI transactions to over $160 billion by 2026, according to Juniper Research. Soundhound clearly has a very high ceiling to grow its revenue at high rates to achieve millionaire-making returns over the long term.
While SoundHound reported a huge net loss of $33 million in the first quarter, it has multiple ways of monetizing its technology that will help it narrow those losses and report a profit down the road. Most of its revenue comes from product royalties, but management expects a growing contribution from subscriptions, which is an inherently profitable revenue source, as well as other monetization strategies over time.
The lack of profitability shouldn't be too concerning for investors right now, since SoundHound has a strong balance sheet, with $126 million of net cash. Moreover, it is seeing growing demand in the restaurant industry, where businesses are turning to SoundHound's Smart Ordering solution to improve employee productivity at a time of higher costs due to inflation.
If you don't mind extra volatility in the share price, SoundHound AI is a promising stock to hold for great return potential over the long term.
