Baron WealthBuilder Fund

Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) designs, manufactures, and launches rockets, satellites, and spacecrafts. Its ultimate goal is to make humanity multi-planetary. Products include reusable orbital launch offerings and a broadband service leveraging its satellite constellation, Starlink.
We believe SpaceX will continue to drive down the cost of space launches and capture market share with its unique, reliable, and improving reusable launch capabilities. As costs decline, we also expect demand for access to space to increase. By leveraging its launch cost leadership, vertical integration, and innovative design approach, SpaceX has an advantage in building and operating its rapidly expanding satellite-based broadband services, creating an even more attractive growth profile for the company.

Arch Capital Group Ltd. (ACGL) is a Bermuda-based insurance company providing property and casualty insurance, reinsurance, and mortgage insurance.
Arch is led by an experienced management team with a successful track record across insurance cycles. The company excels at underwriting specialized policies and can nimbly shift its business mix to target the most profitable lines as market conditions change. Operating in a large global market, Arch benefits from favorable pricing trends across many of its product lines. Management has demonstrated strong underwriting discipline and capital stewardship, allowing Arch to maintain industry-leading returns on equity with less volatility.

Tesla, Inc. (TSLA) manufactures electric vehicles including sedans, SUVs/CUVs, a pickup truck, and a semi-truck. The company is also ramping up internal battery cell production, energy solutions, robotics offerings such as full self-driving and humanoids, and renewable energy generation and storage solutions.
We expect Tesla to continue growing its automotive business as it benefits from the secular adoption of electric vehicles, vertical integration, technological innovation, and cost advantages. The company is also leveraging its core automotive technologies to address the rapidly growing energy storage segment. In addition, Tesla's software and AI expertise is broadening the industrial opportunity to large and profitable revenue avenues that were previously locked in the legacy vehicle architecture, such as autonomous driving, robotics, insurance, and other AI use cases.

MSCI Inc. (MSCI) provides investment decision support tools to global investment institutions.
We believe MSCI, the de facto standard for measuring global market performance, is positioned to benefit from the continuing development of emerging markets, passive investing, sustainability, and the growth of global financial assets. We believe the company's indexes remain the global standard for cross-border investing and will continue to be selected by institutions when issuing new mandates. Both its index and multi-asset portfolio and risk analytics products are mission critical and deeply embedded in client workflows.

Guidewire Software, Inc. (GWRE) is a leading provider of core systems software to the global property and casualty (P&C) insurance industry.
Guidewire is a small player in a vast addressable market and benefits from P&C insurers’ need to upgrade 30-year-old systems. The company offers best-in-class functionality, as evidenced by its growing installed base and near-100% retention rates. After a multi-year transition period, we think Guidewire’s cloud migration is largely complete, and we expect accelerating revenue, expanding margins, and improving free cash flow over the next several years. We believe recent M&A in the vertical software space supports a meaningful value creation opportunity for shareholders.

Kinsale Capital Group, Inc. (KNSL) is a property and casualty (P&C) insurer focused exclusively on the excess and surplus (E&S) lines market, which includes risks that are unique or difficult to place in the standard insurance market.
We believe Kinsale is a well-run insurer that should grow earnings and book value per share much faster than its peers. The company's focus on the attractive E&S market, underwriting discipline, and efficient technology platform enable it to rapidly grow premiums while delivering industry-leading underwriting margins. Management is highly regarded and has decades of experience in the E&S market. We believe Kinsale has a long runway for growth in an attractive segment of the P&C insurance market.

Gartner, Inc. (IT) is the leading independent provider of research and advisory services for IT, HR, sales, finance, and marketing leaders.
Gartner has a vast addressable market, which management estimates exceeds $70 billion annually, implying a penetration rate of less than 3%. IT is rapidly changing and growing in strategic importance, leading users to turn to third-party providers for insight into trends. Gartner enjoys retention rates of more than 100%, driven by the low price of its research relative to value. We think consistent execution in Global Technology Sales and improvements in Global Business Sales will help accelerate Research growth into the low double digits.

Choice Hotels International, Inc. (CHH) is one of the world's largest hotel franchisors, with brands in the economy, midscale, and upscale segments. Its contracts are long term, with many extending up to 20 years. Its brands include Quality Inn, Comfort Inn, Cambria Suites, Ascend, Radisson, and Everhome.
Choice Hotels has a strong franchise business with recurring revenue. The company has demonstrated consistent profitability across cycles by increasing room prices, improving occupancy and royalty rates, and driving new unit growth. Choice Hotels has a solid pipeline of new franchise contracts in revenue-intense segments and is actively expanding the number of upscale brands in its portfolio. The company recently increased its buyback program to 14% of its outstanding shares.

NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA) sells semiconductors, systems, and software for accelerated computing, gaming, and generative AI.
Computing demand has been doubling every one to two years, driven by electrification, digitization, and recent advancements in AI, yet supply growth has decelerated dramatically due to the slowdown in Moore's law. NVIDIA’s accelerated computing architecture enables continued growth in computing capacity through parallelization. We are at the tipping point of a new era in computing, with NVIDIA at its epicenter as generative AI adoption grows. With leading market share in gaming, data centers, and autonomous machines, we think NVIDIA is well positioned for long-term growth.

IDEXX Laboratories, Inc. (IDXX) is the leading provider of diagnostics to the veterinary industry.
IDEXX benefits from secular growth in pet-related spending driven by a strengthening human–animal bond, favorable demographics, increased use of diagnostics, and a greater focus on preventative care. We think IDEXX offers the best diagnostics menu in the industry, which it improves by investing significantly more in R&D each year than its competitors. Its products are sold through a razor-razorblade model, resulting in high customer retention and attractive incremental margins. IDEXX generates strong cash flow, which it has returned to shareholders via share repurchases.