The company, which develops a brand of vegan cosmetics, has had a higher return on the stock market over the past 5 years than Nvidia, the biggest winner of the huge artificial intelligence hype, according to Markets Insider.

According to a report published Tuesday by Bespoke Investment Group, Elf Beauty’s stock price is up 2,639% since the start of 2019, compared to Nvidia’s 1,937% gain over the same time period.

Elf Beauty was founded in 2004 and currently sells bath and skin care products, mineral cosmetics, professional makeup tools, eyeliners, lipsticks, lip glosses, eye shadows and self-tanners, and more.

The company is incorporated in the US state of California and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2016. It boasts that none of its products are tested on animals and that they are “100% cruelty-free.”

A Bespoke Investment report notes that while the company and Nvidia operate in completely different industries, they have one important thing in common: they regularly report impressive earnings in reports to financial regulators, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), in that’s it.

Both companies also regularly beat analysts’ estimates and revised their growth forecasts upward following the release of the latest data.

Two companies with different stories but impressive stock market growth

Business Insider noted in an article published last November that Elf’s success is partly due to the way they use social media platforms like TikTok, Roblox, and Twitch to promote their products.

Nvidia’s recent meteoric rise has been largely attributed to its vision for developing advanced graphics processing units (GPUs), the components used by AI systems such as ChatGPT to perform their complex operations.

However, Markets Insider reminds us that this way of comparing past stock market returns is not perfect.

For example, Elf’s share price in early February 2019 was around $8.50, while Nvidia’s was around $36. A cosmetics company’s lower initial share price means any subsequent gains are reflected in higher earnings.

But like Nvidia, the cosmetics company has experienced an impressive jump over the past 15 months, though not as big as the tech giant’s.

On December 23, 2022, a day after OpenAI officially released ChatGPT to the general public, Nvidia’s share price at the close of the US stock exchange was only $152. It is now $787.

At the same time, Elf Beauty’s share price rose from $54.48 to $202.

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