It's paramount to hold equities that can capture alpha. By making bets on growth companies, this gives you a higher chance of boosting portfolio returns to complement your blue-chips. Here are 3 ASX companies that have grown exponentially in 2019 and have the potential to hit the $1 billion mark in 2020.
Opthea
Opthea Ltd (ASX: OPT) develops biological therapeutics for eye diseases, particularly blood and lymphatic vessel growth and vascular leakage.
Opthea's recent clinical trial was a success, reflecting that its wet age-related macular degeneration treatment is superior than other market offerings. This has been the key driver behind its share price rocketing 481% higher in the year-to-date. The Opthea share price closed yesterday's trade at $3.33.
However, this was only Phase II of the company's clinical trials, making it too early to ascertain whether Opthea can achieve commercialisation. That being said, it was a critical step for Opthea and demonstrated it can beat multinational pharmaceuticals, putting it on the radar as a potential future acquisition target.
I'll be adding this biotech solution to my watchlist for 2020.
Dubber
Dubber Corp Ltd (ASX: DUB), which specialises in cloud-based call recording technology, has generated 315% of investor returns since January. Its stock price sits at $1.62 at time of writing.
This growth stock has grown consistently throughout the course of 2019 and received an extra boost since releasing its FY results. Dubber's active user base expanded by 222%, attracting high-profile clients like AT&T, which drove revenue 132% higher to $7.4 million.
Being a software-as-a-service product, Dubber boasts rapid deployment abilities with almost zero capital expenditure in scaling. The company has cut its net losses by over a third in the last financial year, and has a clear route to profitability in 2020.
Customer calls generate huge amounts of data for companies. Thus, it is increasingly important for businesses to have a solution to analyse and generate meaningful insights from this data. Dubber is well placed to benefit from increasingly digitised companies, particularly for SMEs.
Splitit
Though Splitit Ltd (ASX: SPT) is down 55% since its peak of $2 in March to a $0.91 close yesterday, its stock price has rebounded 75% higher in the last month.
This pickup in growth is attributed to Splitit's newly announced deal with Shopify. A partnership with the likes of this US shopping giant will create a huge market opportunity for the buy-now, pay-later (BNPL) company. While Splitit has just 509 merchants on its platform, it now has access to 800,000 SMEs across 20 countries that love and trust the Shopify experience.
The BNPL sector has room for more than one winner. With Splitit releasing a B2B product and signing with large enterprise clients, I expect investor confidence to remain high for this company in 2020.
