Investing in growth stocks can allow you as a long-term investor to participate in cutting-edge industries driving economic change ranging from healthcare to tech and beyond. Quality growth stocks can deliver consistently high returns through the years, although they tend to be more volatile and reactionary to macro shifts than many value-oriented businesses.
If you have the risk tolerance to put cash to work into these types of businesses, the returns of successful growth stocks tend to be higher than the rate of inflation, which can help preserve and increase the real purchasing power of an investor’s savings over decades. Well-run growth companies often possess a sustainable competitive advantage that allows them to outperform competitors and maintain their growth trajectory.
If you have cash to put into growth stocks right now, here are two companies to consider the next time you go stock shopping.
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Intuitive Surgical(NASDAQ: ISRG) essentially created and dominates the multi-billion dollar surgical robotics market with its da Vinci systems. Once hospitals invest in these expensive systems, they are locked into purchasing high-margin recurring instruments, accessories, and services from the company. This has created an incredible source of recurring revenue that accounts for about 85% of Intuitive Surgical’s overall revenue.
The company boasts a fortress-like balance sheet with significant cash reserves ($8.4 billion in cash at the end of Q3 2025) and low leverage so it can invest heavily in growth and weather economic downturns without relying on debt. It also consistently delivers strong cash flow, and is regularly profitable.
The core business continues to expand, with consistent double-digit growth in procedure volumes (up 20% in Q3 2025) and revenue (up 23% in Q3). The global robotic surgery market itself is expected to grow at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of over 14% through 2030, so there are generous long-term tailwinds for Intuitive Surgical to benefit from.
Intuitive maintains its competitive edge through constant innovation. The launch of the next-generation da Vinci 5 system, which features advanced AI capabilities, enhanced 3D vision, and force feedback technology, is a key driver of growth. The company installed 240 of these systems in Q3 alone, compared to 110 the previous year. Additionally, during the quarter, the company’s installed base of da Vinci surgical systems increased 13% year over year to 10,763 systems.
Robotic surgery is a well-established and rapidly growing technology, particularly in urology, gynecology, and gastrointestinal surgery, offering enhanced precision and improved outcomes for many complex surgical tasks. The technology is still evolving, particularly as the pace of AI (artificial intelligence) integration continues to expand. There’s a tremendous growth runway for Intuitive Surgical in the lucrative surgical robotics industry, and investors could benefit from that long-term trajectory.
TransMedics Group(NASDAQ: TMDX) is known for its Organ Care System or OCS, the only FDA-approved, portable platform for warm perfusion and assessment of donor hearts, lungs, and livers. Warm perfusion is a transplant technology that keeps donor organs (such as livers, hearts, and lungs) functioning outside the body at body temperature using a machine that pumps warm, oxygenated, and nutrient-rich blood. This technology allows surgeons to assess the organ’s real-time viability, repair it, and even use organs previously considered too marginal for transplant, which subsequently improves donor pool utilization and outcomes.
Its proprietary National OCS Program provides a full end-to-end organ retrieval and delivery service including its owned aviation fleet. This integrated approach streamlines logistics, improves surgical outcomes, and creates a significant competitive advantage as well as potential pricing power that TransMedics can leverage in a growing addressable market. TransMedics has demonstrated impressive financial growth recently, with total revenue for Q3 2025 reaching $143.8 million, a 32% year-over-year increase. The company has also consistently beaten analyst EPS estimates in recent quarters, and its earnings came in at $24.3 million for Q3, a 478% increase from a year ago.
TransMedics Group is advancing several strategic initiatives to expand its OCS pipeline and international presence. In August 2025, the FDA granted conditional Investigational Device Exemption approval for the OCS Enhance Heart trial. This is a critical FDA permission that allows the testing of a new medical device (the OCS Heart System) in a clinical trial. The two-part study aims to demonstrate the superiority of TransMedics’ next-generation OCS Heart perfusion over standard cold storage and is expected to be the world’s largest heart preservation trial with over 650 patients.
TransMedics received similar conditional approval to initiate its Denovo Lung trial for the TransMedics OCS Lung System. Both the heart and lung trials were scheduled to begin in the fourth quarter of 2025.
The company is also developing a kidney perfusion device and plans to initiate clinical trials by late 2026 or early 2027. A full commercial launch for the OCS kidney system is targeted for 2029. In September 2025, TransMedics announced a collaboration with Mercedes-Benz Group AG to launch Italy’s first dedicated ground transportation network for organ transplantation. The network will utilize a specialized fleet of Mercedes-Benz V-Class vehicles across four hubs — Milan, Rome, Padua, and Bari — to provide 24/7 clinical and logistical support using the OCS lung, heart, and liver systems to increase organ utilization across Italy.
The success of TransMedics’ next-generation systems and its international expansion will be key to its future growth story. Long-term investors who believe in that value proposition may want to capitalize on the business’s momentum by taking a position.
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Rachel Warren has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Intuitive Surgical and TransMedics Group. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
