Artisan Partners, an investment management company, released its “Artisan Mid Cap Fund” fourth quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. In the fourth quarter, the fund’s Investor Class fund ARTMX returned 5.11%, Advisor Class fund APDMX posted a return of 5.14%, and Institutional Class fund APHMX returned 5.14%, compared to an 8.14% return for the Russell Midcap Growth Index. US equities achieved solid Q4 gains, concluding a strong year. Following Donald Trump’s election win, optimism surged over deregulation and tax cuts. However, concerns about inflation from proposed tariffs and immigration policies emerged in December, introducing market volatility. Despite this, markets ended 2024 with strong gains, marking one of the best two-year performance stretches in decades. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.

In its fourth quarter 2024 investor letter, Artisan Mid Cap Fund emphasized stocks such as GitLab Inc. (NASDAQ:GTLB). GitLab Inc. (NASDAQ:GTLB) develops software for the software development lifecycle. The one-month return of GitLab Inc. (NASDAQ:GTLB) was -14.13%, and its shares gained 2.25% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On March 4, 2025, GitLab Inc. (NASDAQ:GTLB) stock closed at $62.80 per share with a market capitalization of $10.294 billion.

Artisan Mid Cap Fund stated the following regarding GitLab Inc. (NASDAQ:GTLB) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:

"Along with Monolithic Power Systems, notable adds in the quarter included Onto Innovation and GitLab Inc. (NASDAQ:GTLB). Gitlab offers a one-stop shop for software development projects. The company provides developers with tools to manage code, collaborate with teammates and track the entire development workflow. It has a strong brand with more than 30million registered users across its free and paid subscription tiers. Customers adopt Gitlab to deploy code faster, more consistently and more securely. We believe the company is early in its lifecycle given the large addressable market of global software developers and a general trend toward companies looking to digitize aspects of their business and deploy code quickly. Recent earnings results were thesis affirming, and we added to the position."

A team of software engineers working together in an open office, developing innovative solutions.

GitLab Inc. (NASDAQ:GTLB) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 51 hedge fund portfolios held GitLab Inc. (NASDAQ:GTLB) at the end of the fourth quarter compared to 43 in the third quarter. GitLab Inc.'s (NASDAQ:GTLB) FY2025 revenue grew 31% to $759.2 million. While we acknowledge the potential of GitLab Inc. (NASDAQ:GTLB) as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is as promising as NVIDIA but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.

In another article, we discussed GitLab Inc. (NASDAQ:GTLB) and shared Baron Fifth Avenue Growth Fund's views on the company. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q4 2024 page for more investor letters from hedge funds and other leading investors.

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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.