Head-To-Head Analysis: Marin Software (MRIN) versus Veritone (VERI)

Marin Software (NYSE: MRIN) and Veritone (NASDAQ:VERI) are both small-cap business services companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their risk, dividends, valuation, profitability, institutional ownership, earnings and analyst recommendations.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Marin Software and Veritone’s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	EBITDA	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Marin Software	$86.01 million	0.51	-$11.61 million	($0.63)	-1.75
Veritone	$12.02 million	17.20	-$27.21 million	N/A	N/A

Marin Software has higher revenue and earnings than Veritone.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

32.1% of Marin Software shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 1.0% of Veritone shares are owned by institutional investors. 20.8% of Marin Software shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares Marin Software and Veritone’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Marin Software	-28.27%	-21.25%	-17.30%
Veritone	N/A	N/A	N/A

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings and target prices for Marin Software and Veritone, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Marin Software	0	1	0	0	2.00
Veritone	0	0	4	0	3.00

Marin Software currently has a consensus price target of $2.00, suggesting a potential upside of 81.82%. Veritone has a consensus price target of $17.05, suggesting a potential upside of 23.37%. Given Marin Software’s higher possible upside, equities analysts clearly believe Marin Software is more favorable than Veritone.

Summary

Veritone beats Marin Software on 6 of the 11 factors compared between the two stocks.

Marin Software Company Profile

Marin Software Incorporated provides a cross-channel, cross-device, enterprise marketing software platform for search, display and social advertising channels. The Company’s enterprise marketing software platform is offered as an integrated software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution for advertisers and agencies. The Company’s platform enables digital marketers to manage performance of their online advertising campaigns. Its software solution is designed to help its customers measure the effectiveness of their advertising campaigns through its reporting and analytics capabilities; manage and execute campaigns through its user interface and underlying technology that streamlines and automates functions, such as advertisement creation and bidding, across multiple publishers and channels, and optimize campaigns across multiple publishers and channels based on market and business data using its predictive bid management technology.

Veritone Company Profile

Veritone, Inc. is a developer of artificial intelligence (AI) platform. The Company’s platform unlocks the power of cognitive computing to transform unstructured audio and video data and analyze it in conjunction with structured data in a seamless, automated manner to generate actionable intelligence. Its cloud-based artificial intelligence operating system (aiOS) integrates and orchestrates an open ecosystem of cognitive engines, together with the Company’s suite of applications, to reveal valuable multivariate insights from vast amounts of audio, video and structured data. The Company’s technology enables users to run comprehensive, multivariate queries, correlations and analyses in near real-time using multiple cognitive engines and data sets, integrating and refining the outputs. The Company’s services and target markets include Media Agency Services, software as a service (Saas) Solutions, and Other Vertical Markets and Applications.