In recent years, Scottish investment firm Baillie Gifford – which runs the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust – has made a ton of money on growth stocks such as Tesla and Amazon. It has also made a bucketload on private companies such as SpaceX and Anthropic.
Interested to know where the company is investing today? Read on to find out the name of a growth company the firm is piling into.
Heavy buying activity
Earlier this week, I went over Baillie Gifford’s most recent 13F filing. This is a US regulatory filing that shows the trades large investment managers have been making and their holdings at the end of the previous quarter.
Looking at this filing, one trade jumped out at me – aggressive buying in Axon Enterprise (NASDAQ: AXON). In Q1, Baillie Gifford bought 2.5m shares here, increasing its holding by 50%.
If you don’t know Axon, it’s the maker of Taser guns and police body cameras. It also offers a range of state-of-the-art, AI-powered public safety solutions and drone technology.
In short, it’s the number one public safety company globally. And it’s growing at a rapid rate.
Prolific growth
Indeed, Axon’s last quarter (Q1) showed revenue of $807m, an increase of 34% year on year. Impressively, this was the ninth consecutive quarter of 30%+ growth.
Looking ahead, analysts expect revenue of $3.65bn for 2026. That would represent growth of 31% year on year.
Is Axon worth a closer look?
Is this growth stock worth a look today? I believe so – I’ve actually been buying it myself recently while it has been trading below $400 (around 50% below its highs).
In my view, demand for Axon’s solutions is likely to be high in the years ahead. Combine growing levels of unrest globally, reduced levels of police staffing, and higher demand for policing transparency, and the backdrop looks highly favourable, in my view.
It’s worth pointing out that this company has some really powerful technology. For example, its guardian solutions – which integrate into its body cameras – use AI to monitor situations for signs of escalation, malicious activity, or distress, acting as an extra layer of protection for police officers (and the public).
One other thing I like is that it has built a high-switching-cost ecosystem (a wide moat). By shifting from a simple hardware provider to a cloud software provider, Axon has essentially become the digital operating system for law enforcement (note that it has a retention rate of about 120%).
A lot of potential
Now, one downside to this stock is the valuation. Given its growth, it trades on a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio near 50.
I’m comfortable with this earnings multiple as I expect the company to grow into it. But it does add risk – if growth slows down, the shares could underperform.
Taking a five-year view, however, I see a lot of potential. With the company expanding internationally (away from the US), it could see an even brighter future.
In my view, it’s worth considering as a growth play. Note that the average price target is $649 – almost 70% above the current share price.
Should you invest £5,000 in Axon Enterprise right now?
When investing expert Mark Rogers and his team have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the flagship Twelfth Magpie Share Advisor newsletter he has run for nearly a decade has provided thousands of paying members with top stock recommendations from the UK and US markets.
And right now, Mark thinks there are 6 standout stocks that investors should consider buying. Want to see if Axon Enterprise made the list?
Edward Sheldon has positions in Axon Enterprise, Amazon, and Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust.
