Investors have been hit with volatility in 2025’s first quarter, and the S&P 500 index is now down 5.2% year to date. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq Composite is back in correction territory, trading down approximately 10.3% across the stretch.
While the market is likely to be shaped by volatility in the near term, there are still plenty of stocks that will go on to post stellar long-term returns — and taking advantage of valuation pullbacks could help patient investors rack up big gains.
If you’re looking for top growth investment ideas, read on to see why two Motley Fool contributors think that buying Dutch Bros (BROS -3.92%) and Impinj (PI -1.17%) stocks in 2025 and holding for the long term would be a great move.
Small coffee chain, big ambitions
Jennifer Saibil (Dutch Bros): With the market down this year after two years of 20%-plus gains, it’s finally a buyer’s market. But not every stock is down right now. Despite pressure all over the place, Dutch Bros stock is up 19% so far in 2025. Investors appear to be confident about this stock, and you might want to add it to your portfolio.
You may not have had the opportunity to sample Dutch Bros’ coffee-related products yet, since it’s only operational in 18 states. But the restaurant chain is expanding quickly, and customers are loving it. Revenue increased 33% in 2024, and it opened 151 new stores. It’s planning to increase that store count by another 160 (or more) this year, and it has longer-term goals of operating 4,000 stores within the next 10 to 15 years, implying an acceleration of store openings.
The good news is, not all of the revenue growth is coming from new stores, and same-store-sales growth is picking up again. Same-store sales increased 5.3% in 2024, and management is guiding for about 3% same-store sales growth in 2025.
Dutch Bros sets itself apart from other restaurant chains by focusing on speed and customer service. It’s not a young company (although it is a young public company) and has been around almost as long as Starbucks. But it only started expanding in a major way a few years ago. It has an edge over older and larger companies because it’s developing new stores with agility in mind, meeting demand for purchase options in a modern environment. Many of its locations are drive-thru-only, but it’s building new stores with varying formats to fit each location, with some having dining rooms and walk-up windows.
It recently rolled out a mobile order program throughout its network, and it’s already seeing positive results. About 8% of orders came from mobile in the fourth quarter, a continued increase, and mobile customers are increasing their order frequency. Management is confident about what the program offers as it opens in newer locations and aims to boost its brand presence.
As the company scales, it’s becoming highly profitable. Company-operated shop contribution margin expanded by 1.5 percentage points to 29.7% in 2024, and net income increased from $10 million to $66.5 million.
The future looks very bright for Dutch Bros, and it’s a top growth pick for 2025.
This company could help you profit from the rise of robots
Keith Noonan (Impinj): Artificial intelligence (AI) is already having a transformative effect on the world. Thus far, its impact has been primarily concentrated in the software space — but the rise of new automation and robotics technologies will soon make the technology much more visible in the physical world.
While Impinj isn’t directly an AI company, it’s poised to facilitate and benefit from dramatic advances for manufacturing, supply chain, and retail automation in the coming decade. Along the way, the Internet-of-Things (IoT) technologies specialist could wind up delivering huge returns for long-term shareholders.
Impinj designs and manufactures radio frequency identification (RFID) chips that make it easy for computer systems to keep track of objects in the world. The company also makes tag readers and software for identifying the chips and managing the related data.
Using Impinj’s technologies, it’s easy to detect where an item is in a store or a warehouse without the need for a human or a machine-vision system. The tags are also capable of storing information about the object and being updated. These capabilities are already helping customers manage retail operations and supply chains, and they will likely become even more valuable as the AI and robotics systems reshape manufacturing and supply chain operations. But the stock has tumbled recently.
After growing its revenue 30% year over year in the fourth quarter, Impinj’s midpoint guidance calls for first-quarter revenue to decline roughly 22% sequentially and 6% year over year. The company attributed the disappointing outlook to customers taking time to move through existing inventory and geopolitical headwinds.
Due to the sales step-back and broader valuation pressures on growth stocks, the company’s share price is down roughly 37% year to date. It’s also down roughly 62% from its high. Impinj’s growth trajectory will likely continue to be somewhat uneven, but the recent valuation pullback looks like a buying opportunity. With a market capitalization of roughly $2.6 billion, Impinj is still small enough to deliver fantastic returns over the next decade — and it’s still just scratching the surface of potentially massive growth drivers.