Key Points

• These small-cap stocks have each more than doubled in the past six months.
• They are all in the intersection of the hottest megatrends today.
• They could deliver life-changing returns over the coming years.
• Are you ahead, or behind on retirement? SmartAsset’s free tool can match you with a financial advisor in minutes to help you answer that today. Each advisor has been carefully vetted, and must act in your best interests. Don’t waste another minute; learn more here.(Sponsor)

Everyone wishes they had bought companies like Google orNVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA)before they matured into the behemoths they are today. However, very few are willing to take the risk. The argument behind not doing so is quite rational, since small-cap stocks are going through a rough patch.

Stubbornly high interest rates have only barely started to come down, plus investing trends are also against them. Instead of capital finding its way deeper into the market, Wall Street has pulled out of many small-cap stocks and consolidated into a few dozen AI-related big-name stocks.

Still, abandoning small-cap growth stocks altogether is not a good idea. A small portion of your portfolio dedicated to promising names can pay off significantly if even one successfully breaks into the mainstream. Buying small-cap stocks today gives you a great entry point before further interest rate cuts and changes in Wall Street’s investing philosophy lead to a renaissance. Here are three to look into.

Serve Robotics (SERV)

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If you’ve ever ordered food online and had a human deliver it to your door, it may become a thing of the past in a couple of decades.Serve Robotics (NASDAQ:SERV)may be the company that brings it to your door, through a robot.

In fact, it is already doing so in select places and having a lot of success. The company makes small robots that can load up on food and other items and then bring them to homes. It also has cameras and makes sure the food is not being stolen. There have been cases where Serve Robotics’ footage led to criminal convictions.

Serve Robotics has partnered up with Uber Eats. In Q2, it delivered 120 food delivery robots, with the plan to deploy 2,000 robots and then possibly scale exponentially from there. Each robot is rumored to cost around ~$32,000, but making them at scale could easily bring those costs down dramatically.

Once that happens, it becomes hard to see Uber Eats and similar companies employing and paying real humans to do that job. Millions of drivers work for Uber Eats, so it’s a massive opportunity.

Serve Robotics sees a $450 billion market. It is spearheading the industry today, and the entire market cap of the company is just $754 million. SERV stock is up 132.7% in the past six months. I believe it could easily deliver multibagger gains as these robots get better and cheaper.

CPS Technologies (CPSH)

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CPS Technologies (NASDAQ:CPSH)has a harder-to-understand business, but one with massive potential. It is tiny, with a market cap of below $53 million. It can break into the billions if management can land big-name contracts.

The company’s core know-how is AlSiC (aluminum-silicon-carbide) metal-matrix composites. There’s tremendous demand from the electrification plus space megatrend. EVs, wind turbines, 5G/AI power stack and defense platforms all need lighter, cooler-running power modules.

Its aluminum-silicon-carbide composites are already designed into these systems, giving it a toe-hold in markets that together will spend tens of billions on thermal-management materials this decade.

The company also benefits from the space market. CPS AlSiC housings protect the power supply for NASA’s SHERLOC instrument on the Mars Perseverance rover. Parts are also flying on the International Space Station and on the newest satellites operated by the U.S. Space Force.

CPSH stock is already up 137.9% in the past six months. Revenue grew 60.6% to $8 million in Q2 2025, with net income positive at $103.8k.

Unusual Machines (UMAC)

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Unusual Machines (NYSEAMERICAN:UMAC)sells NDAA-compliant drone components like goggles, flight controllers, video transmitters, motors and small ready-to-fly quadcopters. It is aimed at the first-person-view (FPV) segment of the U.S. and allied drone market.

Its near-term engine is the Pentagon/homeland-security push to purge Chinese electronics from small drones; its long-term bet is that every ISR platoon, first-responder squad, and last-mile logistics fleet will need swarms of American-made drones.

If Ukraine tells us anything, it’s that FPV drones are absolutely essential. At the moment, the U.S. does not have an answer to China’s DJI. One may argue that DJI is civilian-only. However, their drones can easily be retrofitted (and have been, it’s widespread) in Eastern Europe.

The U.S. FPV drone industry is still in its early stages, and UMAC has a market cap of $463.8 million. As the Army gets with the times and aggressively pursues a reliable domestic source for these FPV drones, Unusual Machines is likely to be one of the biggest beneficiaries.

UMAC stock is up 154.6% in the past six months. Revenue increased 50.5% in Q2 and beat estimates by 17.26%. It also announced an order today of around $800,000 fromRed Cat Holdings (NASDAQ:RCAT), along with another $12.8 million order earlier this week.

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