Under the Radar: 5 Stocks With 10X Potential

Every investor would like to own a company before the rest of the market discovers how large it can become. Venture capitalists have built an entire business around that possibility. We can pursue a version of the same opportunity in publicly traded stocks, with the added advantage that we can read regular financial reports, follow the stock’s price, and change our minds when the facts change. Venture investors expect a large share of their investments to disappoint.

They make their money when a few companies become so much more valuable that the winners overwhelm the losses. Cambridge Associates found that investments returning at least five times their cost produced an average of 85% of the gains among the top 100 venture investments in each annual cohort it examined. The public market is not as different as many people think. S.

companies accounted for the stock market’s entire net wealth creation above Treasury bills over the period he studied. That raises an exciting question for Under the Radar readers. Could we assemble a basket of emerging public companies with rapidly growing sales and capture some of that upside without joining a venture fund? I think it is an idea worth pursuing.

The hunt begins with businesses that can become much larger than they are today. Low share prices and last year’s revenue growth can help us find candidates, but the real opportunity is the gap between today’s enterprise value and what the business could earn if it executes. A five-dollar stock with two billion shares outstanding may already carry a demanding valuation. We need companies where the potential reward still justifies the risk.

Our regular discipline makes this approach more useful. We want a balance sheet that gives management time to build, a valuation that leaves room for success, improving fundamentals, and a price trend that tells us other investors are beginning to see the progress. Those questions help us identify businesses that might graduate from interesting concepts into major public companies. Aurora Innovation, Compass, Ondas, Eos Energy Enterprises, and Sunrun offer five very different ways to pursue that kind of upside.

Each has an identifiable catalyst that could make it considerably more valuable over the next several years. None is guaranteed to get there. That is precisely why the potential reward exists. Aurora Innovation (AUR): A New Economics for Long-Haul Freight Aurora Innovation develops the Aurora Driver, a self-driving system designed for commercial vehicles.

Its first commercial focus is long-haul freight, where a truck that can spend more productive hours on the road presents a powerful economic proposition to carriers and shippers. Aurora initially operates trucks itself and sells transportation services to freight customers. Its larger ambition is to supply the driving system to partners that own and operate the vehicles, earning a fee tied to usage. If that model takes hold, Aurora could participate in the growth of autonomous trucking without having to finance every truck itself.

This is close to the venture template: an enormous potential market, a business near the beginning of commercialization, and a lot of room between current sales and what success could eventually look like. Aurora began commercial freight operations in April 2025. Second-quarter 2026 revenue doubled to $2 million from $1 million a year earlier. 2 billion in cash and short-term investments at June 30 gives it substantial resources for the next stage.

The milestones from here are concrete. More driverless routes. More trucks hauling paying freight. More paying miles.

Eventually, the move toward fees on partner-operated trucks could turn a promising technology into a scalable commercial business. I want to follow paying miles, utilization, and the economics per truck. Safety and regulatory execution will remain essential. Aurora has moved beyond a laboratory demonstration and has the financial capacity to pursue commercial scale.

That combination makes it one of the most interesting public-market attempts to build a new transportation business. Compass (COMP): Building a Stronger Business From Every Home Sale Compass started as a technology-led residential real estate brokerage. It supplies agents with software and services to manage contacts, listings, marketing, and transactions while earning brokerage commissions when homes sell. Its January 2026 combination with Anywhere Real Estate added a major franchise network and related title and escrow services.

Its portfolio now includes Compass, Coldwell Banker, Century 21, Corcoran, Sotheby’s International Realty, and others. This is a platform with the scale to serve buyers, sellers, and agents across a remarkable share of the housing market. The opportunity is to earn more from that scale as housing activity improves. 31 billion, largely because of the Anywhere merger.

That headline number needs context. 3%. 14 billion in long-term debt. The potential for an outsized return comes from operating leverage.

Compass can bring more transactions through its brokerage and franchise network, offer more title and escrow services alongside them, and spread technology spending across a much larger agent base. Management says the merger savings are running ahead of its original first-year plan. If those savings flow through to cash generation and debt reduction while housing transactions recover, earnings could grow considerably faster than revenue. Compass is further along than the other companies in this group, so I would value it through the earnings and cash flow it can produce from its enlarged network.

The merger-driven headline growth deserves an honest adjustment. The encouraging part is that the comparable business is growing, integration savings are appearing, and a stronger housing market would give this platform another source of momentum. I will be watching agent productivity, cash flow, and the pace of debt reduction. Ondas (ONDS): A Broader Platform for Autonomous Defense Ondas sells autonomous systems and other technology for defense, security, and critical infrastructure.

Its portfolio includes unmanned aircraft, autonomous ground systems, and capabilities intended to detect or counter hostile drones. Customers can use them for surveillance, inspection, and security missions where operating continuously and reducing human exposure matter. Ondas has assembled a wider collection of capabilities through acquisitions, giving it an opportunity to bid on complex programs that call for more than a single drone. The market opportunity is showing up in the financial results.

3 million a year earlier. Acquisitions account for part of that enormous jump, but comparable same-portfolio revenue still increased 85%. Ondas reported about $613 million in backlog at June 30, or roughly $757 million including two acquisitions that closed afterward. 4 billion in cash, restricted cash, and short-term investments.

Those numbers give it both an order book to work through and substantial financial resources. I can see a route to a much larger business if Ondas converts that backlog into deliveries, wins repeat government and industrial orders, and integrates its acquisitions into a coherent platform. A company that can supply connected aerial and ground systems could become an increasingly valuable partner as customers expand autonomous operations. There is still plenty of work to do.

6 million tells us spending is running well ahead of earnings. I want to see backlog become revenue and cash, with existing businesses continuing to grow and losses narrowing as the platform scales. If Ondas delivers that combination, the earnings power could look very different a few years from now. Eos Energy Enterprises (EOSE): Scaling an American Battery Manufacturer Eos manufactures zinc-based battery systems for long-duration energy storage.

These stationary systems allow utilities and other customers to store electricity for hours and use it when demand rises or generation falls. The company makes its batteries in Pennsylvania, giving customers a domestic source of technology at a time when the grid must accommodate more intermittent generation and large new power loads. If Eos can scale its factories, it could become an important supplier to a growing part of the electricity market. 8 million, up 351% from a year earlier as production and deliveries expanded.

1 million in cash, including restricted cash, at June 30. There is an important detail to track within that impressive sales increase. About $55 million of quarterly revenue was recorded as related-party revenue. That makes customer concentration and the mix of future deliveries particularly useful measures of progress.

This is a manufacturing scale-up, and that is where the opportunity lies. More output from its factory lines can spread fixed costs over more batteries, improve delivery times, and support additional orders. If Eos makes that transition while demand continues to grow, the distance between today’s economics and a profitable energy-storage franchise offers substantial upside. The sales growth tells us the opportunity is becoming real.

The next step is proving that scale can translate into sustainable economics. Sunrun (RUN): Turning Home Batteries Into a Power Business Sunrun installs and finances rooftop solar and home battery systems, often through long-term customer agreements that let households obtain the equipment without paying the full cost upfront. It remains responsible for customer service and, for systems it retains, receives payments over time. That gives Sunrun a growing base of household energy relationships.

Its more ambitious opportunity is to connect those batteries so they can also provide capacity and other services to utilities and the wider grid. A home battery can help its owner when electricity prices rise or the power goes out. Thousands of coordinated batteries can begin to look like a power plant. The shift toward storage is becoming visible.

In the second quarter of 2026, 74% of new Sunrun customers added storage, up from 70% a year earlier. 6 gigawatt-hours of networked storage capacity. Quarterly revenue grew 53% from a year earlier to $870 million. Revenue from customer agreements and incentives increased 19%.

As with Compass, the headline revenue number needs some context. Much of the faster growth in equipment sales reflects a transaction structure in which certain newly originated systems are sold to a third party. I find the grid opportunity especially interesting. Sunrun already operates distributed power plant programs under which coordinated home batteries provide electricity capacity when the grid needs it.

In June, Sunrun, Tesla, and Renew Home announced a joint effort to develop flexible capacity for utilities and large power users. Their proposed scale is an ambition for the partnership, not capacity Sunrun alone is delivering today. The investment case is that a larger battery network can generate more value per customer, both from the household agreement and from grid services as electricity demand grows. Sunrun is a more established business than Aurora or Eos, but its shares could still produce an outsized return if investors come to see a durable, cash-generating energy platform behind the solar installation business.

The financing requires close attention. The company reported positive $23 million in its own Cash Generation measure for the second quarter, while GAAP cash used in operating activities was $186 million. It also carried substantial project-level non-recourse debt backed by its energy systems. I will watch the cash that ultimately reaches common shareholders, the cost and availability of project financing, storage adoption, and revenue earned from grid services.

If Sunrun can keep adding valuable customers and make that battery network pay, its business could be worth far more than a conventional rooftop solar installer. Finding the Winners Early Position size deserves thought with this type of investing. Venture-style results require owning enough candidates to have a reasonable chance of catching an exceptional winner and keeping a successful investment long enough for the return to matter. Consider a simple example.

If we buy 20 equal positions, 15 lose 60%, four double, and one rises tenfold, the basket gains only 20% in total. 7% annually before costs and taxes. One ten-bagger does not automatically create a great portfolio. That arithmetic argues for finding companies with several routes to success, buying at sensible valuations, and letting genuine winners compound.

Can this approach beat the market? I believe it can give us a chance, particularly when we combine a venture investor’s willingness to look early with our discipline on credit, valuation, and momentum. Aurora could make driverless freight a real commercial business. Compass could turn a vast housing network into meaningfully higher cash earnings.

Ondas could become a major supplier of autonomous defense and security systems. Eos could build a profitable domestic battery manufacturer. Sunrun could turn a network of home batteries into a valuable source of grid capacity. None of those outcomes is guaranteed.

That is not the point. We want exposure to businesses where meaningful progress could produce an outcome dramatically better than what today’s numbers suggest. Our job is to recognize that progress early, insist on a price that leaves room for the rewards, and give the businesses that keep delivering enough time to become far larger than they are today.