CrowdStrike Holdings Inc (NASDAQ: CRWD) soared nearly 12% on Thursday following upbeat commentary and product reveals at the company’s Fal.Con event.
At the conference, the firm’s management laid out a rather bold vision for AI-driven cybersecurity as well – reinforcing confidence in the company’s long-term growth.
CrowdStrike stock has been in a sharp uptrend in this year – riding the wave of global demand for cloud-native security platforms.
At the time of writing, it’s up over 60% versus its year-to-date low in March.
What made CrowdStrike stock soar on Thursday?
CRWD stock rallied this morning primarily on the back of management’s upbeat long-term outlook for annual recurring revenue (ARR).
On Thursday, the Austin-headquartered firm projected a 20% growth in its net new ARR in fiscal 2027 – handily beating the Street’s forecast for 14% only.
Even more striking was CrowdStrike’s vision to double ARR every five years, reaching $20 billion by fiscal 2036.
That level of conviction – especially in a subscription-based model – signals massive confidence in product-market fit and customer retention, which investors interpret as an indication of durable growth, not cyclical momentum.
With the cybersecurity firm’s ARR already nearing $5 billion, its path to $10 billion and beyond looks increasingly plausible, especially as artificial intelligence integration accelerates adoption.
Is it as far as CRWD shares go in 2025?
Despite significant outperformance, KeyBanc’s senior analyst Eric Heath expects CrowdStrike to push higher from here over the next few months.
Heath maintained his “overweight” rating on CRWD shares today, citing the company’s leadership in agentic AI and its ability to scale Falcon across cloud environments.
According to him, CrowdStrike shares may be trading at a premium – but the firm’s execution and innovation justify that premium.
The cybersecurity stock could push meaningfully higher from here, especially if AI-driven security demand continues to outpace broader tech growth, he told clients in a research note on Thursday.
Note that analysts at Guggenheim, Jefferies, and Evercore ISI also raised their price objectives on CRWD following the company’s Fal.Con conference today.
Is CrowdStrike a better AI stock than Nvidia?
While CrowdStrike is not an inexpensive stock to own at writing, its price-to-sales (P/S) multiple, nonetheless, sits well below the artificial intelligence behemoth, Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ: NVDA).
CRWD is currently trading at about 28x times sales – compared to NVDA at north of 32. So, from a valuation perspective, the cybersecurity firm could offer relatively more AI-driven upside.
CrowdStrike’s revenue base is growing steadily with strong visibility.
Its AI initiatives, particularly in autonomous threat detection and behavioural analytics, are tightly integrated in its core platform – not just adjacent experiments.
Moreover, unlike Nvidia stock, which faces geopolitical headwinds and supply chain dependencies, the cybersecurity company’s software-first model is more insulated and scalable.
For investors seeking exposure to AI with a cybersecurity backbone, CRWD presents a compelling alternative.
It’s not just riding the artificial intelligence wave – it’s embedding it into mission-critical enterprise infrastructure.
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