3 Better Moonshot Stocks to Buy Instead of SpaceX

Despite its $2 trillion market cap, it is safe to say that SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) is a moonshot bet for investors. The company only generated $19 billion in revenue last year and reported a net loss of $4.9 billion, making its current valuation based entirely on hopes for the success of future bets, like its plans to put data centers in orbit, to churn out AI processors at its Terafab plant, or position its Starlink satellite internet service to replace traditional mobile carriers. However, there are plenty of technological hurdles to overcome before any of those ambitious plans might come to fruition, and there is no guarantee that any of these bets will pay off.

With that in mind, let's look at three other speculative growth stocks that may be better moonshot bets for your portfolio.

IonQ: The quantum computing accuracy leader

If you want to place a moonshot bet on future technology, IonQ (NYSE: IONQ) is one of the more interesting investments you can make. The company is currently at the forefront of quantum computing.

One of the biggest challenges faced by every company attempting to develop a commercially viable quantum computer is that the qubits they are built around are incredibly sensitive to any external influence, which makes the machines error-prone.

IonQ's trapped-ion qubit systems have achieved a 99.99% two-qubit gate fidelity, making it the accuracy leader. But it's important to recognize that 99.99% accuracy is still far from accurate in the world of computing. The chips in the device you're using to read this make fewer than one error per quadrillion computations.

That said, IonQ's technological achievements put it on a clear path toward developing a viable, fault-tolerant system in the future. The company is also involved in multiple parts of the quantum ecosystem, including networking, and it's in the process of acquiring SkyWater, which will give it its own dedicated semiconductor foundry.

If you want to make a bet on quantum computing, this is a top stock in the space.

SoundHound AI: An intriguing merger

SoundHound AI (NASDAQ: SOUN) shares have struggled this year -- they're down by about 30% as of the close of trading Monday -- but the company's vision has never been clearer. With its pending acquisition of LivePerson, SoundHound is looking to use its AI voice and agentic AI platform to aggressively go after the customer service market. This is a huge market where its voice-powered AI agents could make big inroads.

The company has already been growing its revenue quickly, including by 52% in the first quarter, as it has positioned itself as a leader in voice AI. The LivePerson purchase is a relatively cheap deal that will give it access to a large, established customer base that it can upsell on a more complete voice AI product. Its prior deal for Amelia brought it important technology that it used to launch its agentic AI solution and also helped it get into new verticals like the medical and financial industries. The LivePerson deal will expand its reach in the call center and customer service spaces.

Now, LivePerson is a distressed company that is cheap for a reason, so the acquisition does carry risks, but if the buyer can use its own tech to help turn that troubled operation around, it could be a home run deal.

Image source: Getty Images.

UiPath: Looking to be an agentic AI orchestration leader

Another play on agentic AI is UiPath (NYSE: PATH), which has built an AI orchestration platform. This technology has huge potential, as organizations will eventually need a robust tool for managing the various third-party AI agents operating within their ecosystems.

As a leader in robotic process automation (RPA) -- the use of software bots to perform repetitive, rules-based tasks -- UiPath has a strong foundation to be a leader in this field, as it has the compliance guardrails and connections to legacy systems already in place. Its Maestro platform also taps into its RPA past, and can assign either AI agents or software bots to tasks, depending on which type of tool is best suited to a given need. This can save customers a lot of money, as software bots are much cheaper to use than AI agents, and AI agents are not needed to automate every task.

UiPath's stock trades at a cheap forward price-to-sales ratio of just 3.5 and a forward price-to-earnings ratio of just 15. The company has been making some progress on the top line, with revenue up 17% last quarter. Given its low valuation, if it can become an AI orchestration leader, the stock could have huge upside. That makes it a moonshot bet worth considering.

Geoffrey Seiler has positions in UiPath. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends IonQ, SkyWater Technology, SoundHound AI, and UiPath. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.