Big data refers to large and diverse collections of data that cannot be managed by traditional data processing tools. Although the need to manage large data sets goes back to the 1960s and 1970s, it was around 2005 when open-source frameworks were created to store and analyze big data sets. Then, the Internet of Things (IoT) enabled gathering more data on product performance and customer usage patterns with more devices connected to the Internet. With the current expansion of generative AI and cloud computing enterprise use, big data continues to grow.
According to a report by Research and Markets, the big data market is projected to grow from $220.2 billion in 2023 to $401.2 billion by 2028, at a compound annual growth rate of 12.7% during the forecast period. Region-wise, North America holds the largest market share, driven by early adoption of big data solutions, a mature IT infrastructure, and a strong focus on innovation. Simultaneously, Asia Pacific serves as the fastest-growing segment in the market as a result of rapid digitization, proactive government support for technological advancements, and growing internet connectivity.
Big data offers numerous benefits such as enhancing predictive capabilities, better insights, strategic decision-making, personalized customer experiences, and improved operational efficiency. The use cases for big data are diverse spanning various industries including retail and ecommerce, healthcare, financial services, manufacturing, as well as government and public services. For instance, the e-commerce giant Amazon utilizes big data gathered from customers to fine-tune its recommendation engine to recommend products to customers who tend to feel overwhelmed by the variety of choices available to them in the modern era. Such suggestions tend to drive impulsive purchases.
Simultaneously, the biotech leader AstraZeneca has unlocked the potential of data and AI-driven drug discovery and development. The firm claimed to hold a vast trove of oncology data from numerous consenting patients, including clinical, imaging, and multi-omics data. This data is fed by the firm’s Oncology Data Science team into a system that uses AI and other statistical tools to generate novel hypotheses in oncology drug development. Other than data from its clinical trials, the firm also collaborates with external companies to leverage real-world data that represents patients from across the globe.
With that being said, let’s move to the 12 best big data stocks to buy according to hedge funds.
Our Methodology:
In order to compile a list of the 12 best big data stocks to buy according to hedge funds, we went through relevant ETFs and media reports to make a list of big data stocks. Moving on, we shortlisted the top 12 stocks from our list which had the highest number of hedge fund holders. The 12 best big data stocks to buy according to hedge funds have been arranged in ascending order of their hedge fund holders, as of Q3.
At Insider Monkey we are obsessed with the stocks that hedge funds pile into. The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points (see more details here).
12 Best Big Data Stocks To Buy According to Hedge Funds
12. Teradata Corporation (NYSE:TDC)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 25
Teradata Corporation (NYSE:TDC) is a software company that provides cloud database and analytics-related software, products, and services. The company enables more confident decision-making, fosters faster innovation, and drives impactful business results for organizations.
Teradata offers the best in class and the most complete cloud analytics and data platform. The firm is trusted by the world’s largest enterprises globally across industries including airlines, banks, telecommunication companies, and courier services companies, among others. Teradata Corporation (NYSE:TDC) successfully grew its cloud business in the third quarter. Public cloud ARR increased to $570 million from $454 million, up 26% year-over-year. Additionally, the firm has realigned its sales function to optimize operations and now manages its business under two segments, which are also its new operating segments, Product Sales and Consulting Services. Simultaneously, Teradata remains on track to reduce operating expenses by approximately $75 million to $80 million on an annualized run rate.
With customers around the world trusting Teradata with their most sensitive data, Teradata Corporation (NYSE:TDC) is a promising big data stock that enables unlocking the power of big data. As of Q3, the stock is held by 25 hedge funds.
11. SAP SE (NYSE:SAP)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 36
SAP SE (NYSE:SAP) is a provider of enterprise application software and software-related services. The firm has grown from a small, five-person endeavor founded in 1972 to a multinational business. SAP is headquartered in Walldorf, Germany.
SAP serves as a market share leader in enterprise applications software, enterprise resource management applications, supply chain management applications, procurement applications software, travel and expense management software, and ERP software. The firm stands at the nexus of business and technology and has the vision of bringing out the best in every business and so, organizations have trusted SAP for more than 50 years. SAP SE (NYSE:SAP) is also a top cloud vendor with the largest cloud portfolio with more than 100 solutions for all lines of business (LoB) as well as software suites. There are more than 300 million subscribers in the company’s cloud user base.
SAP SE (NYSE:SAP) continued its strong business momentum through the third quarter. The current cloud backlog grew by 25% to €15.38 billion. Cloud revenue was up 25% to €4.35 billion, driven by the growth in Cloud ERP Suite revenue. The firm is carrying out its 2024 Transformation Program by increasing its focus on key strategic growth areas, in particular business AI. SAP is executing a firm-wide restructuring program to ensure that the firm’s skill set and resources continue to meet future business needs. The restructuring program is expected to affect 9,000 to 10,000 positions and end in early 2025.
While traditional business models tend to decentralize data management with every business function storing its own operational data in a separate database, SAP software comes to the rescue by centralizing data management and allowing access to real-time insights across the enterprise. The firm ranks on our list of the best big data stocks to invest in according to hedge funds.
10. Varonis Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRNS)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 42
Varonis Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRNS) is the leading provider of software solutions for unstructured, human-generated enterprise data. The firm provides an innovative software platform that enables enterprises to map, analyze, manage, and migrate their unstructured data.
The firm has a leading position in data security as its cloud-native Data Security Platform discovers and classifies critical data, removes exposures, and detects advanced threats with AI-powered automation. Varonis Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRNS) has gained the trust of thousands of organizations to defend their data wherever it lives, across SaaS, IaaS, and hybrid cloud environments.
Varonis Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRNS) also offers universal classification support for databases. Building on its existing support for popular databases such as Oracle, SQL Server, MySQL, and PostgreSQL, the firm also allows customers to quickly integrate and use Varonis’ world-class data classification with their preferred databases while they’re hosted in the cloud or on-premises.
The firm’s annual recurring revenues or ARR grew 18% year-over-year in the third quarter. With 43% of the total company ARR coming from SaaS, the strong demand for Varonis SaaS from both new and existing customers was reflected. Additionally, Varonis announced new AI-powered data discovery and classification capabilities that enhance its industry-leading data classification technology.
9. Palantir Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:PLTR)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 43
Palantir Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:PLTR) is an American software company focused on big data analytics. The firm makes products for human-driven analysis of real-world data and focuses on creating the world’s best user experience for working with data.
With organizations around the world using Palantir to help them do their most important work, the firm has gained a reputation and has even made it to the S&P 500 based on the strength of its business and the expanding demand for its software. The US market remains the core of the firm’s business and growth, with the US institutions rapidly adopting the firm’s platforms and artificial intelligence capabilities more broadly. Palantir is experiencing an unwavering demand for its advanced artificial intelligence technologies from the US government and commercial customers.
The third quarter was definitely strong for Palantir Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:PLTR) amidst the unrelenting AI demand from the US. The firm generated the largest profit in the company’s twenty-year history, reaching $144 million in net income. Palantir reported revenue growth of 30% year-over-year while U.S. revenue grew 44% year-over-year. The firm was also successful in boosting its customer count by 39% year-over-year. Thus, Palantir Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:PLTR) is a leading big data stock that is witnessing accelerating business growth under a U.S.-driven AI revolution. As of Q3, the stock is held by 43 hedge funds.
8. Elastic N.V. (NYSE:ESTC)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 47
Elastic N.V. (NYSE:ESTC) combines the precision of search with the intelligence of AI. The company enables its customers to find the answers they need in real-time, using all of their data, at scale.
The firm’s platform, Elastic Search AI Platform is available as both a hosted, managed service across public clouds as well as self-managed software, allowing its customers to find insights and drive AI and machine learning use cases from large amounts of data. The firm offers three search-powered solutions including Search, Observability, and Security, that are built on the platform. The platform features are promising and include being able to securely store and quickly access all data from megabytes to petabytes, explore data, spot trends, and anomalies, find insights, and share results with Elastic’s fully integrated data visualization user interface, as well as making it easy to find exactly what one is looking for.
For the second quarter of fiscal 2025 which ended on October 31, Elastic N.V. (NYSE:ESTC) recorded a revenue increase of 18% year-over-year. Elastic Cloud revenue was $169 million, witnessing a rise of 25% year-over-year. As digital transformation drives mission-critical business functions to the cloud, the firm believes that companies need to incorporate search AI capabilities across IT and line-of-business organizations to find the answers that matter from all of their data in real time and at scale. Thus, Elastic is helping businesses looking to leverage big data.
7. MongoDB, Inc. (NASDAQ:MDB)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 49
MongoDB, Inc. (NASDAQ:MDB) empowers innovators to create, transform, and disrupt industries by unleashing the power of software and data. The firm’s developer data platform is a database with an integrated set of related services that enables development teams to cater to the growing requirements for a wide variety of modern applications. MongoDB is headquartered in New York.
MongoDB serves as the preferred database for developers across multiple industries due to the flexibility of the document model and its scale-out architecture. The MongoDB database platform has been downloaded hundreds of millions of times since 2007. The firm is pursuing a large opportunity in the data management software market which is forecasted to grow over the coming years.
The foundational concept backing up MongoDB’s developer data platform is to solve the most challenges around enterprise data including the unification of data across multiple applications, complexity with multitudes of workload-specific tools and technologies, data synchronization, vendor lock-in for proprietary formats, and duplicate efforts across cloud platforms.
In the recent quarter, MongoDB, Inc. (NASDAQ:MDB) made the MongoDB AI Applications Program (MAAP) generally available to customers. Simultaneously, MongoDB has been an important partner to hyperscalers globally as it was named Amazon Web Services’s (AWS) Technology Partner of the Year in Taiwan, AWS’s Global Software Partner of the Year in ASEAN, and Microsoft’s Global ISV Partner of the Year in Spain. As of Q3, the stock is held by 49 hedge funds.
6. International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE:IBM)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 56
The tech giant International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE:IBM) provides integrated solutions and services worldwide. The firm operates through the Software, Consulting, Infrastructure, and Financing segments. IBM was incorporated in 1911 and is headquartered in Armonk, New York.
IBM offers a comprehensive, integrated, and industrial-strength big data platform that addresses the full spectrum of big data business challenges. The IBM big data platform has distinct advantages. It is designed to be a complete platform for managing and analyzing the volume, variety, and velocity of big data, boasts enterprise-class capabilities, provides users visualization tools to explore all available data for ad hoc analysis, and integrates analytic engines optimized for big data, as well as pre-built accelerators for industry-specific and cross-industry applications. It also helps organizations understand their data, improve it, and then allow business users to act on it.
The firm’s third-quarter performance was driven by broad-based growth in the Software segment which represents nearly 45% of the total revenue. The firm recorded revenue of $15.0 billion, up 1 % over the year. Software revenue was up 10%, Consulting revenue remained flat, while Infrastructure revenue and Financing revenue declined, year-over-year. The cash flow was strong as IBM generated net cash from operating activities of $9.1 billion for the first nine months of the year.
Clients globally are increasingly turning to IBM to transform their operations with technology. The firm recently announced new collaborations with NatWest, Telefonica, Samsung SDS, and Toyota Systems among other companies. Simultaneously, the firm continues to strengthen its relationships with key technology partners such as Dell, Intel, Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce, SAP, and ServiceNow.
5. Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 60
Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) is a leading global professional services company headquartered in Dublin. The company helps its clients use technology to drive enterprise-wide transformation by building their digital core, optimizing their operations, and accelerating their revenue growth. Accenture offers a range of services such as Strategy and Consulting, Technology and Operations Services. The firm is a talent- and innovation-led company with 774,000 people catering to clients in more than 120 countries.
Accenture combines its strength in technology and leadership in cloud, data, and AI with an unrivaled experience, global delivery capability, and functional expertise. In terms of experience, the firm has more than 100 data and AI projects in nearly every industry, with an unrivaled ecosystem of alliance partners. The firm offers a full spectrum of services to help companies unlock the value of dormant data.
Accenture also enables companies to unlock the value of data, innovation, and cloud by its deep partnership with Oracle. While the need for continuous reinvention has become crucial for businesses, a unified digital core becomes essential for driving sustained growth. In this regard, Oracle technology helps businesses build a scalable digital core that integrates seamlessly across functions and ensures that data is connected, processes are streamlined, and decision-making is better.
Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) recently closed its full fiscal year ended August 31 with a record $81.2 billion new bookings for the full year. The firm continues to lead in Generative AI which is going to be the most transformative technology in the future. It posted Generative AI new bookings of $1 billion for the fourth quarter and $3 billion for the full year. For fiscal 2025, Accenture is in a good position with continued investments in its business and its proven strategy of leading reinvention for clients.
4. Datadog, Inc. (NASDAQ:DDOG)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 71
Datadog, Inc. (NASDAQ:DDOG) serves as the observability and security platform for cloud applications. The company’s SaaS platform integrates and automates infrastructure monitoring, application performance monitoring, real-user monitoring, log management, and other capabilities to offer unified, real-time observability and security for its customers’ entire technology stack. Datadog caters to organizations of all sizes and across various industries.
The firm set out in 2010 to build a real-time data integration platform to turn the chaos of having uncorrelated data from disparate sources into digestible and actionable insights. Datadog solves complexity by offering a unified platform for breaking down silos, which is deployed everywhere and used by everyone. The firm’s ability to capture market share is evident from the fact that the number of monthly active users has grown from 2017 to 2023 where monthly active users are users at paying customers, who logged onto the Datadog platform in December of the given year.
The company’s third quarter went well with revenue growing 26% year-over-year to $690 million. As of September 3, Datadog had about 3,490 customers with ARR of $100,000 or more, an increase of 12% year-over-year. The firm also reported an achievement as it was named a Leader in the 2024 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Observability Platforms and the 2024 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Experience Monitoring.
The growth opportunities for Datadog, Inc. (NASDAQ:DDOG) remain vast with the secular tailwind of digital transformation and cloud migration. The Cloud market is a $560 billion market as of now, growing at a 20% CAGR through 2027. The observability market and the Cloud Security market are to expand over the years as well.
3. Snowflake Inc. (NYSE:SNOW)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 71
Snowflake Inc. (NYSE:SNOW) is a cloud-based data storage company whose vision is a world with unlimited access to governed data. The firm created the Data Cloud which is a global network where numerous organizations mobilize data with close to unlimited scale, concurrency, and performance. Snowflake’s platform is the engine powering and enabling access to the Data Cloud thereby creating a solution for collaboration, applications, cybersecurity, data engineering, data science, data warehousing, data lake, and unistore.
While every organization struggles with silos, Snowflake comes to the rescue. Organizations can unite their siloed data, discover and securely share governed data, and execute diverse analytic workloads inside the Data Cloud. Sridhar Ramaswamy, CEO of Snowflake, attributes the drive to produce product cohesion and ease of use as the factors that have built Snowflake into the easiest and most cost-effective enterprise data platform. This enables the firm to win new customers and remain competitive. As of the third quarter, Snowflake had the privilege of having 754 Forbes Global 2000 customers.
Snowflake Inc. (NYSE:SNOW) is pursuing a strong combination of growth and scale with a rise in annual product revenue and quarterly product revenue over the year. For the third quarter of fiscal 2025, the growth remained at scale with 29% year-over-year product revenue growth. The firm maintains world-class retention with a net revenue retention rate of 127% as of October 31, as well as a large customer momentum with 542 customers with trailing 12-month product revenue over $1 million.
The firm is helping its customers drive down costs significantly with multiple customers stating that they have saved at least 50% migrating to Snowflake from other providers. Thus, Snowflake Inc. (NYSE:SNOW) is another top big data stock with its leading enterprise data platform and business momentum at a global scale. As of Q3, the stock is held by 71 hedge funds.
2. Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 91
Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL) provides products and services that address enterprise information technology (IT) environments. The firm’s products and services include enterprise applications and infrastructure offerings that are delivered globally through a variety of flexible and interoperable IT deployment models. The firm’s mission revolves around helping people ‘see data in new ways, discover insights, and unlock endless possibilities’.
Oracle offers the broadest and most integrated portfolio of products to help acquire and organize diverse data types and analyze them alongside the existing data. This allows for finding new insights and capitalizing on hidden relationships. The firm was the first vendor to offer a complete and integrated solution to cater to the full spectrum of enterprise big data requirements when it introduced Oracle Big Data Appliance.
Oracle’s cloud platform provides a unified data model that simplifies data management, eliminates silos, and reduces the complexity of integrations. This enhances operational efficiency while accelerating the deployment of new technologies thereby enabling organizations to innovate faster and at scale.
For the fiscal 2025 Q1, Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL) recorded quarterly revenues up 7% year-over-year. With Cloud Services becoming Oracle’s largest business, the firm’s operating income and earnings per share growth rose. Cloud Services revenues were up 21% year-over-year. Additionally, a major milestone for the firm was signing a MultiCloud agreement with AWS. AWS customers will be getting easy and convenient access to the Oracle database when it goes live in December later this year.
1. Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 116
Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM) is an American cloud-based software company. Salesforce serves the world’s top AI customer relationship management (CRM) platform with more than 150,000 companies using its cloud-based software. The firm’s complete suite of products unites every team and is the only integrated platform bringing humans together with autonomous agents to lead to customer success.
Salesforce plays a crucial role in leveraging big data. The firm has been the leader in the CRM market for over two decades. CRM platforms are a major way of dealing with big data which helps deliver exceptional customer experiences. Salesforce Platform combines customer data with AI capabilities to take CRM to the next level, Thus, AI-enabled CRM enables analyzing customer behavior, predicting trends, and providing personalized recommendations.
Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM) has introduced Data Cloud, the only data platform native to Salesforce, which brings the company’s structured and unstructured data together to create an actionable, comprehensive, 360-degree view of customers. Due to Data Cloud’s tremendous customer adoption and success, the firm gained industry recognition and was named a Leader in the Gartner® Magic Quadran for Customer Data Platforms (CDP).
While we acknowledge the potential of CRM as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some deeply undervalued AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for a deeply undervalued AI stock that is more promising than CRM but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
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