Baron Funds, an investment management company, released its “Baron Discovery Fund” fourth quarter 2023 investor letter. A copy of the same can be downloaded here. In 2023, the fund (Institutional Shares) returned 22.58% outperforming the 18.66% return for the Russell 2000 Growth Index. In Q4, the fund returned 12.44% compared to a 12.75% return for the index. Since its inception, investors in the fund have earned an annualized return of 12.42%, resulting in a more than tripled investment. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2023.
Baron Discovery Fund featured stocks such as Varonis Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRNS) in the fourth quarter 2023 investor letter. Headquartered in New York, New York, Varonis Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRNS) provides cyber security solutions. On February 6, 2024, Varonis Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRNS) stock closed at $48.60 per share. One-month return of Varonis Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRNS) was 7.07%, and its shares gained 70.17% of their value over the last 52 weeks. Varonis Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRNS) has a market capitalization of $5.295 billion.
Baron Discovery Fund stated the following regarding Varonis Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRNS) in its fourth quarter 2023 investor letter:
“Varonis Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRNS) is a cybersecurity vendor that helps organizations classify, locate, and protect sensitive data across on-premise and cloud environments. Shares of Varonis increased on strong quarterly results with annual recurring revenue (ARR) growth and free cash flow beating consensus. Last year, Varonis began transitioning to a Subscription as a Service (SaaS) model, which will benefit clients via lower maintenance costs, better automation, and faster remediations of data vulnerabilities. Throughout 2023, demand for the SaaS model has been much higher than investors anticipated, and SaaS already accounts for over 15% of ARR. SaaS customers are landing with more licenses, paying 30% higher prices per license, and signing deals faster. As this mix shift progresses, we anticipate improved sales efficiency and higher margins. Varonis remains a competitively advantaged business in the data security industry, which we believe can accelerate in 2024 as recent SEC disclosure requirements for security breaches drive industry awareness, and regulated companies look to invest in data security as a prerequisite for adopting generative AI.”
An employee standing in front of a large data center, looking toward the future of cloud security.
Varonis Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRNS) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 26 hedge fund portfolios held Varonis Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRNS) at the end of third quarter which was 25 in the previous quarter.
We discussed Varonis Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRNS) in another article and shared the list of stocks Morgan Stanley is recommending for 2024. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q4 2023 page for more investor letters from hedge funds and other leading investors.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
