Innodata: A Most Peculiar Rise

Innodata. It sounds, doesn’t it, like a forgotten Soviet research facility? Or perhaps a particularly obscure type of pasta? In fact, it’s a company that’s been quietly puttering along since 1988, mostly dealing with, well, data. Lots and lots of data. For years it was a perfectly respectable, if unremarkable, entity. Then, rather unexpectedly, it stumbled into the artificial intelligence business. Which, as anyone who’s observed the tech world recently will tell you, is a bit like stumbling into a gold mine… or possibly a very elaborate bubble.

The transformation, it seems, has been rather beneficial for those who happened to buy shares five years ago. A curious thing, the stock market. It often rewards the patient, or, let’s be honest, the lucky.

Innodata Over the Last Five Years

Five years back, you could have picked up Innodata shares for $7.25 apiece. Let’s say you were feeling adventurous and invested $101.50, giving you 14 shares. Now, as of today, those 14 shares would be worth a rather astonishing $662. That’s quite a return. For comparison, the same amount invested in the S&P 500 would have yielded a considerably more modest $195. One begins to wonder if we’ve all been investing in the wrong things. Perhaps we should all be collecting antique thimbles.

Interestingly, this particular investment wasn’t all sunshine and roses until May of 2024. For a long time, it just… sat there. Then, seemingly overnight, Innodata became a partner for companies building those generative AI models everyone is talking about. From penny stock to something resembling a proper growth stock, and rather quickly too. It peaked at almost $94 a share – a truly remarkable ascent. Makes one wonder if the people running the company knew something the rest of us didn’t.

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However, as with most things that shoot for the moon, gravity eventually exerts its influence. The stock has lost about half its value since that October peak. Valuation concerns, naturally. And the ever-present fear of an “AI bubble” – a concept that, frankly, sounds exhausting. Bubbles always burst, don’t they? The question is when, and how spectacularly.

Despite the recent pullback, investors might still have a reason to hold on. The stock’s price-to-earnings ratio now sits at 49. That’s higher than the S&P 500 average of 30, certainly, but not entirely unreasonable for a company experiencing rapid growth. It’s a bit like paying extra for a faster horse – you expect it to perform accordingly.

And the growth has been robust. Revenue reached $179 million in the first nine months of 2025, a 61% increase. That’s a significant jump, suggesting this AI boom isn’t about to fizzle out anytime soon. With that kind of momentum, and a relatively manageable P/E ratio, Innodata could continue to outperform the market. Which is to say, it might just keep defying expectations. A truly peculiar outcome, wouldn’t you agree?

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2026-02-14 01:13