Reviewing MARA (NASDAQ:MARA) & C3.ai (NYSE:AI)

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

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and price targets for MARA and C3.ai, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
MARA	3	1	8	0	2.42
C3.ai	7	4	2	0	1.62

MARA presently has a consensus price target of $19.10, indicating a potential upside of 141.31%. C3.ai has a consensus price target of $9.36, indicating a potential downside of 20.87%. Given MARA’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities research analysts plainly believe MARA is more favorable than C3.ai.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

44.5% of MARA shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 39.0% of C3.ai shares are held by institutional investors. 1.0% of MARA shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 19.8% of C3.ai shares are held 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.

Valuation and Earnings

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

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
MARA	$804.22 million	3.80	-$1.31 billion	($9.16)	-0.86
C3.ai	$250.27 million	7.60	-$470.37 million	($3.08)	-3.84

C3.ai has lower revenue, but higher earnings 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.

Volatility & Risk

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

Profitability

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

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

Summary

MARA beats C3.ai on 9 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

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.

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.