For investors that still have many years before retirement, growth stocks are one of the most efficient ways to increase their net worth. But the recent market sell-off is a good reminder that even the most promising companies can see their share prices fall in any given year.

But investors should never judge the investment merits of a business by its stock performance, since stocks can rise and fall for all kinds of reasons in the near term. A lot of the day-to-day movement in the markets is driven by traders who have a much shorter time frame for making money than retirement savers do.

SoundHound AI (SOUN -8.16%) and The Trade Desk (TTD 18.71%) are two growth stocks that fell hard this year. These companies just reported their first-quarter financial results. Let's look at what they reported, and whether it justifies at much lower prices than where they started 2025.

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1. SoundHound AI

SoundHound AI has shown promising growth potential over the past few years. It is providing conversational voice technology powered by artificial intelligence (AI) to several leading restaurant brands and car companies.

After soaring last year to over $20, the stock has fallen 61% from those highs. But after the business just reported another quarter of strong growth, investors have to wonder if it's due for another rally.

Revenue grew 151% year over year in the first quarter. This growth was partly boosted by the acquisition of Amelia last year, which will extend the company's technology to new markets like healthcare and financial services. In the quarter, SoundHound unveiled Amelia 7.0, which will allow customers to use voice-enabled AI agents to automatically complete tasks without further instructions.

The company has been investing in voice technology for 20 years, and it has accumulated data from millions of conversations in dozens of languages. This is making its voice AI much smarter, potentially providing the company with a competitive advantage.

Its relationship with leading AI chip supplier Nvidia validates its capabilities. SoundHound's voice AI is integrated with Nvidia's AI Enterprise platform, which allows it to deliver faster processing and more responsive voice AI.

It's making great progress to grow its customer base. No single customer makes up more than 10% of its total revenue, which removes customer-concentration risk from the business.

However, SoundHound will still need to improve its profitability, as it reported a large adjusted net loss of $22 million on $29 million of revenue in the first quarter. The stock is also trading at an expensive valuation of 38 times trailing sales.

Overall, the company's growth, strategic acquisitions, and collaboration with Nvidia make it a mid-cap stock worth considering. If you're looking for a fast-growing company with huge upside potential in the AI market, SoundHound AI is an intriguing option. If the company can narrow its losses and continue to report high revenue growth, the stock could be a long-term winner.

Image source: Getty Images.

2. The Trade Desk

In a year where there is a lot of uncertainty for the economy, marketers are looking for ways to boost the return on their ad spending, and many are increasingly turning to The Trade Desk, a leading digital ad-buying platform.

After the stock was cut in half earlier this year over a rare revenue miss in the fourth quarter, The Trade Desk returned with a strong quarter of growth to start 2025. The stock jumped after it reported revenue grew 25% over the year-ago quarter. It also notched a significant improvement in profits, with earnings per share surging 67% year over year.

The Trade Desk has been delivering high growth like this for several years. Its average annual revenue growth over the past 10 years is 49%, yet its platform has captured just 1% of total ad spending.

Investors are counting on its Kokai platform to drive more growth. Kokai uses AI to scan millions of ad impressions instantly to help ad buyers improve the effectiveness and return on their advertising investment. Management previously said it expected all clients to be using the platform by the end of this year.

Over the long term, The Trade Desk should benefit from people spending more time on platforms not owned by tech giants like Google, which controls a large portion of the digital ad market. Only around half of ad spending is going toward the open internet, while over half of Americans spend their time there. This is a big opportunity for The Trade Desk.

Analysts expect the company's earnings to grow at an annualized rate of 31% in the coming years. The stock isn't cheap, trading at 41 times expected earnings this year. But investors interested in the The Trade Desk's opportunity should take advantage of the recent dip, because this is about as fair of a valuation investors can expect for this quality growth stock.