We recently published a list of 12 Best Enterprise Software Stocks to Buy Now. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Crowdstrike Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRWD) stands against other best enterprise software stocks to buy now.
In 2024, the global enterprise market size was estimated at $263.79 billion, according to Grand View Research. It’s expected to now grow at a CAGR of 12.1% from 2025 to 2030, due to the increasing demand for automated and integrated solutions. Enterprise software becomes more desirable as organizations seek reduced reliance on HR to eliminate manual errors and automate routine tasks. Therefore, ERP (enterprise resource planning), CRM (customer relationship management), and data analytics software are becoming increasingly popular.
Enterprise software is actively transforming with the integration of AI technologies, which changes how it’s designed, deployed, and utilized. According to Endava, GenAI is driving this transformation by incorporating creative and analytical capabilities into enterprise applications. This enables software to undergo intelligent tasks like generating reports, creating personalized training materials, and writing codes. AI not only automates manual jobs but also allows hyper-personalization of customer-facing enterprise software. This allows platforms like CRM and e-commerce to deliver targeted content and recommendations, which leads to higher customer satisfaction and improved sales. This is fueled by adaptive AI-enhanced enterprise software that learns from vast datasets to provide real-time and individualized interactions.
AI-driven automation is also becoming more popular in core business processes. ERP and workflow management systems are automating complex tasks and reducing manual intervention to improve overall efficiency. Enterprises are streamlining operations and making data-driven solutions through the integration of now-standard features like process mining, intelligent document processing, and predictive analytics. Agentic AI is further pushing enterprise software towards greater autonomy. These are AI systems that act like human agents and autonomously perceive, reason, and analyze data to achieve certain goals. As enterprise software continues to integrate advanced AI capabilities in its regular applications, the technology becomes more proactive and intelligent.
Our Methodology
We sifted through ETFs and financial media reports to compile a list of the top enterprise software stocks. We then selected the 12 stocks that were the most popular among elite hedge funds and that analysts were bullish on. The stocks are ranked in ascending order of the number of hedge funds that have stakes in them, as of Q4 2024. The hedge fund data was sourced from Insider Monkey’s database which tracks the moves of over 900 elite money managers.
Why are we interested in 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 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (see more details here).
Security personnel at their consoles, monitoring a global network of threats in real-time.
Crowdstrike Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRWD)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 77
Crowdstrike Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRWD) provides global cybersecurity solutions. Its platform provides cloud-delivered protection of endpoints, cloud workloads, identity, and data through a SaaS subscription-based model. It also offers AI-powered workflow automation and GenAI workload services.
The company’s enterprise software segment is centered on its AI-native Falcon platform which is an AI-native Security Operations Center (SOC). This platform has become a crucial component of enterprise cybersecurity strategies. The Falcon Flex subscription model is increasing adoption and driving large multi-year deals. In Q4 2024, Falcon Flex’s deal value improved by over $1 billion and accounted for $2.5 billion. The company’s GenAI security analyst Charlotte AI is also driving tangible AI outcomes by significantly reducing threat response times.
The company’s cloud security business was up 45% year-over-year and ended with an ARR of over $600 million. The identity protection business also grew to exceed $370 million in ending ARR. On March 25, J.P. Morgan analyst Brian Essex reiterated a Buy rating on the company due to this reaccelerated ARR from effective cost containment. Essex anticipates growth in the company’s Cloud and Identity segments due to the adoption of Falcon’s Flex platform. The company is projecting FY26 total revenue to grow by 20% to 22%.
Given the company’s strong position in cloud-native cybersecurity tools, Sands Capital Technology Innovators Fund is optimistic about its future and stated the following regarding CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRWD) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:
“CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRWD) is the market-share leading provider of cloud-native cybersecurity tools. The business was founded in 2011 as an endpoint detection response vendor and disrupted a group of incumbents, often owned by private equity or large conglomerates, that failed to innovate. It has since grown its cloud-native set of endpoint security solutions to include antivirus software, threat detection, and device management and patching tools. We view endpoint security as an attractive market, due to its mission-critical nature, large size, and accelerating growth, enabled by the emergence of modern cloud based solutions. Over our five-year horizon, we expect Crowdstrike to sustain above-average earnings growth as it seeks to displace legacy endpoint security vendors to gain share, expands its product offerings with existing customers, and gains traction in newer and emerging capabilities.”
Overall, CRWD ranks 6th on our list of best enterprise software stocks to buy now. While we acknowledge the growth potential of CRWD, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold great promise for delivering high returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. There is an AI stock that went up since the beginning of 2025, while popular AI stocks lost around 25%. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than CRWD but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.