Leo Sun, The Motley Fool
4 min read
In This Article:
-
SoundHound AI is growing rapidly, but it’s racking up steep losses.
-
Its growing dependence on acquisitions raises a few red flags.
-
A lot of growth has already been baked into its valuations.
SoundHound AI (NASDAQ: SOUN), a developer of artificial intelligence (AI)-powered audio recognition tools, saw its stock close at a record high of $24.23 on Dec. 26, 2024. But since then, its stock has declined nearly 60%.
Let's see why this hot stock fizzled out -- and if its pullback represents a buying opportunity for long-term investors.
SoundHound AI's namesake app identifies songs by listening to several seconds of recorded audio or a few hummed bars. However, most of its growth is fueled by Houndify, its developer platform, which allows businesses to create their own custom voice recognition tools.
Houndify powers voice recognition features in restaurant ordering platforms, smart TVs, connected cars, and other devices. It's an appealing option for companies that don't want to send data to Microsoft, Alphabet's Google, or other tech giants that provide their own data-gathering voice recognition services.
SoundHound AI initially attracted a lot of attention for three reasons. First, its revenue surged 47% in 2022, rose another 47% in 2023, and jumped 85% in 2024. Second, the booming AI market drove a stampede of bulls to its AI-driven stock. Lastly, the AI chipmaking bellwether Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) boosted its stake in SoundHound and integrated its voice recognition tools into its Drive platform for connected vehicles.
Yet Soundify's stock stumbled for three reasons. First, most of its growth in 2023 and 2024 was driven by acquisitions -- including the restaurant AI company SYNQ3, the online food ordering platform Allset, and the conversational AI company Amelia. That strategy strengthened its position in the restaurant industry, but it also indicated it was running out of room to grow. Second, those acquisitions made it even tougher to break even.
Its adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) margins came in at negative 73% last year -- which broadly missed its original target of achieving a positive adjusted EBITDA margin by 2024. Lastly, Nvidia liquidated its entire position in SoundHound AI earlier this year.
SoundHound ended 2024 with a backlog of $1.2 billion, and it already serves big automakers like Stellantis, quick-serve restaurants like Chipotle, healthcare institutions like MUSC Health, and tech giants like Tencent. Automakers are adding more voice-activated features to their vehicles, restaurants are using more of its AI tools to process their drive-thru and phone orders, and healthcare institutions are processing more patient requests with Amelia's AI chatbots.
