In 2025, ARKK outperformed the broader equity market and demonstrated the resilience of innovation-led investing. While performance varied across holdings, investor sentiment throughout the year was heavily influenced by near-term macroeconomic uncertainty and company-specific execution concerns. In our view, that environment created a disconnect between short-term market behavior and the long-term value of transformative technologies.
At ARK, we invest with a five-year time horizon and focus on technologies that we believe can change how the world works, such as artificial intelligence, robotics, genomics, next-generation communications, and digital assets. During 2025, several policy and macro developments, including lower interest rates and more supportive investment incentives, began to improve the backdrop for innovation-led growth. In this article, we examine some of the strongest and weakest performers within ARKK during 2025.
Strong Performers
Strong performers are limited to companies held among ARKK’s top ten positions that delivered returns of more than 50% in 2025, consistent with our concentrated, high-conviction portfolio construction. In our view, broader market positioning remained underallocated to these companies, as many backward-looking investors failed to price in their improving growth outlook heading into 2025—something the sharp rallies across each name ultimately reflected.
Robinhood (HOOD) Traded Up 204% In 2025
Robinhood is a mobile-first financial services platform offering commission-free trading across equities, options, and cryptocurrencies, alongside cash management, credit, and premium subscription products. While often viewed narrowly as a retail brokerage, we believe the market increasingly recognized in 2025 that Robinhood is evolving into a comprehensive digital wallet and financial operating system for a new generation of investors.
Throughout 2025, Robinhood delivered strong operating results, reporting revenue growth of 115% year-over-year in the fourth quarter of 2024, followed by 50% growth in the first quarter and 45% growth in the second quarter 2025, driven by strength across equities and crypto trading. Those results consistently exceeded Wall Street expectations and reflected improving engagement, product breadth, and monetization across the platform. Robinhood’s inclusion in the S&P 500 and its addition to Morgan Stanley’s 2025 Financials Top Picks further reinforced growing institutional recognition of the company’s progress.
Product velocity remained a defining feature of the year. Robinhood hosted multiple dedicated product events—including its annual HOOD Summit, a crypto-focused event, and the Lost City of Gold showcase—unveiling a steady cadence of new features. Key launches included Robinhood Social with verified live trades, major upgrades and the addition of short selling to Robinhood Legend, custom indicators, futures, and advanced charting, the debut of Robinhood Ventures Fund I, and expansion into banking and advisory services—all broadening the platform well beyond core trading.
Robinhood also continued to deepen its presence in crypto and alternative markets, launching tokenized stocks and ETFs for EU customers, enabling 24/5 commission-free trading of tokenized US securities, and developing a proprietary Layer 2 blockchain built on Arbitrum to support tokenized assets. The company introduced crypto staking for Ethereum and Solana, enhanced crypto rewards tied to the Robinhood Gold credit card, and expanded its prediction markets hub, which surpassed $4 billion in cumulative contract volume. We continue to have conviction in Robinhood’s long-term opportunity, as we believe its rapid product innovation, expanding monetization levers, and ability to aggregate financial activity onto a single mobile-first platform position the company to generate durable growth and operating leverage as digital wallets become increasingly central to consumer finance.
Palantir (PLTR) Traded Up 135% In 2025
Palantir provides data integration and analytics platforms that enable governments and large organizations to build production-grade AI applications on top of their most sensitive and complex data. Rather than relying on costly in-house systems or inflexible off-the-shelf software, customers increasingly turn to Palantir’s platform to run data-driven operations tailored to their specific business requirements.
In 2025, Palantir’s commercial business was as a key growth driver, fueled by strong adoption of its Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP) and the company’s hands-on AIP bootcamps, which demonstrate how quickly impactful AI applications can be deployed. As of the second quarter of 2025, US commercial revenue grew 93% year-over-year, accelerating from 71% in the prior quarter, and momentum strengthened further following the company’s impressive third-quarter results, which significantly exceeded expectations and showed US commercial growth reaching 121% year-over-year. We believe this acceleration reflects the increasing strategic importance of AI for enterprises and the maturity and differentiation of Palantir’s commercial offerings.
While Palantir has faced some near-term headwinds within government as agencies seek to limit vendor lock-in, we believe its government business remains well positioned as militaries and civilian agencies accelerate AI adoption and modernize data infrastructure amid rising geopolitical tensions. Palantir also has expanded its addressable opportunity with Palantir Government Web Services (GWS), which enables other technology providers to meet more rapidly the stringent security and compliance required when selling into the public sector. In our view, the market increasingly recognized Palantir’s ability to translate data complexity and AI urgency into accelerating commercial traction and growing cash flow, contributing to the stock’s strong performance in 2025.
In light of its strong performance and resulting valuation expansion, we took profits throughout the year, reflecting our ongoing emphasis on valuation discipline and risk management—even in companies in which we maintain high long-term conviction. Trimming into strength allows us to rebalance exposures, manage concentration, and preserve flexibility to add opportunistically, should volatility or near-term multiple compression emerge.
We continue to have conviction in Palantir’s long-term opportunity, as we believe its combination of deeply integrated data platforms, production-grade AI deployment, and expanding commercial traction differentiates the company as a core infrastructure provider for organizations seeking to operationalize AI at scale. As data volumes grow and AI becomes increasingly mission-critical across both enterprises and governments, we believe Palantir is well positioned to sustain durable growth, generate increasing cash flow, and deepen its strategic relevance over time.
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Traded Up 77% In 2025
Advanced Micro Devices is a global semiconductor company designing CPUs, GPUs, and related hardware used across data centers, client PCs, gaming, and embedded systems. While NVIDIA currently dominates the AI hardware market, we believe the long-term opportunity for AI compute is large and expanding. In our view, that growth creates room for multiple winners, and we believe AMD also is positioned to capture a meaningful share of the market despite competition from NVIDIA and custom silicon developed by hyperscalers.
AMD continues to take share from legacy competitors in the x86 server CPU market, driven by the strength of its data center offerings. If AMD maintains its execution advantage, we believe its share of the data center CPU market can continue to grow. The company’s gaming business also remains positioned for long-term growth, supported by trends like e-sports, virtual reality, and increasingly immersive digital environments, which continue to drive demand for high-performance compute.
During 2025, several high-profile partnerships and product initiatives reinforced AMD’s execution and strategic positioning. Shares contributed to fund performance following news of the company’s significant AI collaborations, including a multiyear partnership with OpenAI and a collaboration with Oracle to support a public AI supercluster. AMD also reported strong third-quarter 2025 results, with 36% year-over-year revenue growth, driven by robust demand across its Data Center and Gaming segments, and supported by a $1 billion supercomputing partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy. Investor confidence was further bolstered by enthusiasm around new AI products, plans to resume sales of MI308 chips to China, and endorsements from major customers, including Microsoft, OpenAI, xAI, and Meta. We continue to have conviction in AMD’s long-term opportunity, as we believe demand for AI-capable CPUs and GPUs will expand well beyond a single vendor.
Tempus AI (TEM) Traded Up 75% In 2025
Tempus AI is a healthcare technology company leveraging artificial intelligence to advance precision medicine by integrating clinical and molecular data at scale. Founded in 2015, the company has built the Tempus Platform, which aggregates one of the largest libraries of clinical and molecular oncology data globally and applies AI to generate actionable insights for physicians and researchers. While initially focused on oncology, Tempus is expanding its capabilities into neuropsychology, radiology, and cardiology, broadening its relevance across the healthcare system.
In 2025, Tempus continued to demonstrate strong operating momentum as adoption of AI-enabled diagnostics accelerated. Shares contributed to fund performance following second-quarter results that showed nearly 90% year-over-year revenue growth, as well as the acquisition of Paige, an AI-powered digital pathology company that strengthens Tempus’s multimodal diagnostics capabilities. The company also received FDA clearances for its AI-powered cardiac imaging platform and for its RNA-based in-vitro diagnostic device, supporting both clinical care and drug development programs.
Tempus further expanded its platform and partnerships throughout the year, announcing new collaborations aimed at enhancing oncology diagnostics and early disease detection. These included work with Northwestern University’s Abrams Research Center to accelerate Alzheimer’s research, the launch of the Fuses program for personalized diagnostics, and the national rollout of Olivia, an AI-enabled concierge application designed to help patients manage their healthcare more efficiently. In our view, these initiatives highlight Tempus’s ability to translate its data assets and AI capabilities into scalable, patient-facing, and enterprise solutions.
We continue to have conviction in Tempus AI’s long-term opportunity, as we believe the falling costs of next-generation sequencing are driving broader clinical adoption of molecular diagnostics and making AI-powered precision medicine increasingly viable at scale. Tempus’s multimodal data platform, growing library of clinical and molecular data, and expanding regulatory and industry validation position the company to benefit as healthcare shifts toward more personalized, data-driven decision-making. As AI and genomics converge to improve diagnostic accuracy and treatment selection, we believe Tempus is well positioned to emerge as a foundational infrastructure provider in precision medicine.
Shopify (SHOP) Traded Up 52% In 2025
Shopify is a comprehensive omnichannel e-commerce platform that enables merchants to design, launch, and manage their businesses across online and offline sales channels. The platform integrates payments, logistics, customer engagement, and AI tools into a single operating system for commerce. As the dominant platform for direct-to-consumer merchants, we believe Shopify continues to take share by addressing nearly every aspect of running an e-commerce business.
Operational momentum remained strong throughout 2025. Shares contributed to fund performance following second- and third-quarter earnings that exceeded expectations, with GMV and revenue growth of 31% and 32% year-over-year, respectively. During Black Friday–Cyber Monday, Shopify merchants generated a record $14.6 billion in sales, up 27% year-over-year. The company also announced more than 150 product updates at Winter Editions ’26, including continued enhancements to Sidekick, Shopify’s AI workflow automation tool, and expanded support for agentic storefronts operating on AI chat platforms like ChatGPT and Perplexity.
Shopify also deepened its integration with the emerging AI and digital asset ecosystems. The company announced integrations with OpenAI to enable instant in-chat checkout for ChatGPT users and with Lovable, which enables merchants to build Shopify stores using natural language prompts. Shopify further partnered with Coinbase to launch Base-Pay, enabling near-instant USDC transactions for merchants. We continue to have conviction in Shopify’s long-term opportunity, as we believe global e-commerce should continue to grow, driven in part by technologies like autonomous delivery, digital wallets, and AI-enabled commerce. In our view, Shopify’s ability to combine cloud software, payments, and AI positions it as a foundational platform for the next generation of global commerce.
Weak Performers
Weak performers are positions held throughout the year that declined by more than 30%, often amid heightened scrutiny, despite the company’s continued progress on the long-term platform objectives in which ARK’s conviction remains steadfast.
The Trade Desk (TTD) Traded Down 68% In 2025
The Trade Desk provides software that helps advertisers buy digital ads across the open internet. Its platform allows brands and agencies to run advertising campaigns across video, connected TV, mobile, audio, and other formats, all from a single system. The company earns revenue by taking a small percentage of the advertising dollars that flow through its platform.
The stock declined in 2025 after a series of earnings reports showed slower growth than investors expected. Early in the year, the company reported its first earnings miss since going public and issued more cautious guidance. Competition also increased, particularly as large technology companies expanded their advertising platforms. Management acknowledged execution issues, reorganized parts of the business, and announced a leadership transition in the finance function.
Despite those challenges, we believe The Trade Desk remains well-positioned over the long term. Digital advertising continues to grow as media consumption moves online, and automated, data-driven ad buying is becoming increasingly important. We expect programmatic advertising to take a larger share of global ad spending, and we believe The Trade Desk’s scale, technology, and independent position on the open internet can support renewed growth over time.
Recursion Pharmaceuticals (RXRX) Traded Down 40% In 2025
Recursion Pharmaceuticals is a “techbio” company building an operating system for drug discovery. The company combines automated, high-throughput biology with artificial intelligence to generate and analyze one of the world’s largest proprietary biological datasets. By systematically mapping relationships among genes, cells, and diseases, Recursion aims to translate biology into computable data and use machine learning to identify, prioritize, and advance drug candidates more efficiently. This integrated platform is designed to scale drug discovery across many diseases, rather than pursuing single programs through traditional trial-and-error research.
RXRX shares declined in 2025 primarily because of the company’s portfolio rationalization, mixed early clinical results, and higher operating expenses following the Exscientia business combination. Recursion discontinued several clinical programs, including REC-2282 and REC-994, after data indicated limited clinical activity. While some programs demonstrated encouraging early signals, the majority of the portfolio remains in early-stage development, with clinical activity still emerging. At the same time, operating expenses increased as Recursion integrated Exscientia and expanded investment across R&D and platform capabilities.
ARK remains confident in Recursion’s long-term potential as its platform translates into more focused execution and increasing validation. With Recursion's new CEO (former Chief R&D and Commercial Officer), effective Jan 2026, we expect the company to continue refining its pipeline toward the higher-conviction programs supported by emerging clinical data. Potential catalysts include additional clinical readouts across the portfolio, continued partnership progress, and milestone payments from collaborators like Roche, Genentech, and Sanofi. These partnerships provide third-party validation of the Recursion OS while extending the company’s cash runway. As clinical data mature and platform-generated programs advance, we believe street sentiment will shift from near-term uncertainty to the durability and scalability of Recursion’s techbio model.
Twist Bioscience (TWST) Traded Down 32% In 2025
Twist Bioscience produces synthetic DNA used by researchers and companies in genomics, drug development, diagnostics, and industrial biology. Its silicon-based manufacturing process allows DNA to be written more quickly, more accurately, and at lower cost than traditional methods.
Shares declined in 2025, despite strong revenue growth, in part because of short-term factors. In early 2025, TWST shares and shares of other companies in the broader life science tools sector faced headwinds associated with the uncertainty and reductions in government funding for academic research—a core customer group for TWST. As the year progressed and the funding outlook stabilized, shares recovered meaningfully to end the year and begin 2026. In May 2025, TWST spun out its DNA data storage business, and shares were temporarily pressured as the market digested the strategic shift that allowed Twist to focus on its revenue generating businesses, reduce spend, and ultimately revise the EBITDA breakeven timeline to 2026. Finally, Twist’s fourth-quarter 2025 results were impacted by a $5 million air pocket associated with a large MRD (minimal residual disease) customer’s transition from clinical to commercial production. That is a minor near-term headwind that we believe sets the stage for future growth as the customer’s commercial volumes scale. In any case, several factors overshadowed the continued progress made with Twist’s core products, including DNA tools used in sequencing, antibody development, and gene-editing research. That said, although shares declined 32% in 2025, they are down only ~8% since the beginning of 2025.
We believe demand for synthetic biology tools will continue to grow as medicine and biology become more data-driven. Twist’s technology helps customers lower costs and accelerate research, creating a durable competitive advantage. While short-term volatility reflected funding cycles, strategic changes, and other short-term headwinds, we believe Twist remains well positioned to benefit from long-term growth in genomics and biotechnology, particularly the rapidly growing MRD diagnostic market. Moreover, as researchers seek to leverage AI to analyze large datasets, Twist plays an increasingly meaningful role, not only by enabling large experiments but by also conducting the experiments and monetizing the data with a higher margin offering.
Important Information
Investors should carefully consider the investment objectives and risks as well as charges and expenses of an ARK Fund before investing. This and other information are contained in the ARK ETFs’ prospectuses and summary prospectuses, which may be obtained by visiting www.ark-funds.com. The prospectus and summary prospectus should be read carefully before investing.
An investment in an ARK Fund is subject to risks and you can lose money on your investment in an ARK Fund. There can be no assurance that the ARK Funds will achieve their investment objectives. The ARK Funds’ portfolios are more volatile than broad market averages. The ARK Funds also have specific risks, which are described below. More detailed information regarding these risks can be found in the ARK Funds’ prospectuses.
This material is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as the basis for any investment decision. It does not constitute, either explicitly or implicitly, any provision of services or products by ARK, and investors should determine for themselves whether a particular investment management service is suitable for their investment needs. All statements made regarding companies or securities are strictly beliefs and points of view held by ARK and are not endorsements by ARK of any company or security or recommendations by ARK to buy, sell or hold any security. Historical results are not indications of future results.
Certain of the statements contained in this material may be statements of future expectations and other forward-looking statements that are based on the current views and assumptions of ARK and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results, performance or events to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements. ARK assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking information contained in this podcast. ARK and its clients as well as its related persons may (but do not necessarily) have financial interests in securities or issuers that are discussed. Certain information was obtained from sources that ARK believes to be reliable; however, ARK does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of any information obtained from any third party.
EBITDA stands for Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization. It is a financial metric used to evaluate a company's operating performance and core profitability by stripping away financing costs, tax environments, and non-cash accounting items. It serves as a proxy for cash flow.
The principal risks of investing in the ARK Funds include:
Disruptive Innovation Risk. Companies that ARK believes are capitalizing on disruptive innovation and developing technologies to displace older technologies or create new markets may not in fact do so. Companies that initially develop a novel technology may not be able to capitalize on the technology. Companies that develop disruptive technologies may face political or legal attacks from competitors, industry groups or local and national governments. These companies may also be exposed to risks applicable to sectors other than the disruptive innovation theme for which they are chosen, and the securities issued by these companies may underperform the securities of other companies that are primarily focused on a particular theme.
Equity Securities Risk. The value of the equity securities the ARK Funds hold may fall due to general market and economic conditions. Foreign Securities Risk. Investments in the securities of foreign issuers involve risks beyond those associated with investments in U.S. securities. Health Care Sector Risk. The health care sector may be affected by government regulations and government health care programs. Consumer Discretionary Risk. Companies in this sector may be adversely impacted by changes in domestic/international economies, exchange/interest rates, social trends and consumer preferences. Industrials Sector Risk. Companies in the industrials sector may be adversely affected by changes in government regulation, world events, economic conditions, environmental damages, product liability claims and exchange rates. Information Technology Sector Risk. Information technology companies face intense competition, both domestically and internationally, which may have an adverse effect on profit margins.
Additional risks of investing in ARK ETFs include market, management and non-diversification risks, as well as fluctuations in market value NAV. ETF shares may only be redeemed directly with the ETF at NAV by Authorized Participants, in very large creation units. There can be no guarantee that an active trading market for ETF shares will develop or be maintained, or that their listing will continue or remain unchanged. Buying or selling ETF shares on an exchange may require the payment of brokerage commissions and frequent trading may incur brokerage costs that detract significantly from investment returns.
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ARK Investment Management LLC is the investment adviser to the ARK Funds.
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ARK’s statements are not an endorsement of any company or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any security. ARK and its clients as well as its related persons may (but do not necessarily) have financial interests in securities or issuers that are discussed. Certain of the statements contained may be statements of future expectations and other forward-looking statements that are based on ARK’s current views and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results, performance, or events to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements.
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