Contrasting C3.ai (NYSE:AI) and MARA (NASDAQ:MARA)

C3.ai (NYSE:AI) and MARA (NASDAQ:MARA) are both technology companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their profitability, earnings, valuation, analyst recommendations, dividends, risk and institutional ownership.

Volatility & Risk

C3.ai has a beta of 2.11, meaning that its share price is 111% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, MARA has a beta of 5.33, meaning that its share price is 433% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current ratings and target prices for C3.ai and MARA, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
C3.ai	7	5	2	0	1.64
MARA	3	1	8	0	2.42

C3.ai presently has a consensus target price of $9.62, indicating a potential downside of 14.90%. MARA has a consensus target price of $19.10, indicating a potential upside of 158.81%. Given MARA’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe MARA is more favorable than C3.ai.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

39.0% of C3.ai shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 44.5% of MARA shares are owned by institutional investors. 19.8% of C3.ai shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 1.0% of MARA shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares C3.ai and MARA’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
C3.ai	-192.10%	-61.25%	-49.03%
MARA	-429.71%	-26.05%	-12.73%

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares C3.ai and MARA”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
C3.ai	$250.27 million	7.27	-$470.37 million	($3.08)	-3.67
MARA	$907.09 million	3.14	-$1.31 billion	($9.16)	-0.81

C3.ai has higher earnings, but lower revenue than MARA. C3.ai is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than MARA, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

MARA beats C3.ai on 8 of the 13 factors compared between the two stocks.

About C3.ai

C3.ai, Inc. operates as an enterprise artificial intelligence (AI) software company in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Asia Pacific, and internationally. The company provides C3 AI platform, an application development and runtime environment that enables customers to design, develop, and deploy enterprise AI applications; C3 AI Ex Machina for analysis-ready data; C3 AI CRM, an industry specific customer relationship management solution; and C3 Generative AI Product Suite that enables to locate, retrieve, and present information. It also offers C3 AI applications, including C3 AI Inventory Optimization, a solution to optimize raw material, in-process, and finished goods inventory levels; C3 AI Supply Network Risk, which identifies emerging inbound and outbound risks across the network; C3 AI Sustainability Suite, which helps to decrease greenhouse gas emission; C3 AI Production Schedule Optimization, a solution for scheduling production; C3 AI Financial Services Suite, which helps to minimize compliance risks; and C3 AI Energy Management solution. In addition, it offers integrated turnkey enterprise AI applications for oil and gas, chemicals, utilities, manufacturing, financial services, defense, intelligence, aerospace, healthcare, and telecommunications market. It has strategic partnerships with Baker Hughes in the areas of oil and gas market; Booz Allen to provide solutions to government, defense, and intelligence sectors; Raytheon; and AWS, Google, and Microsoft. The company was formerly known as C3 IoT, Inc. and changed its name to C3.ai, Inc. in June 2019. C3.ai, Inc. was incorporated in 2009 and is headquartered in Redwood City, California.

About MARA

MARA Holdings, Inc. operates as a digital asset technology company that mines digital assets with a focus on the bitcoin ecosystem in United States. The company was formerly known as Marathon Digital Holdings, Inc. and changed its name to MARA Holdings, Inc. in August 2024. MARA Holdings, Inc. was incorporated in 2010 and is headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.