Star hedge fund managers pitched their best ideas at the Sohn San Francisco investment conference on Tuesday, including an under-the-radar stock in connected TV and a digital mortgage company that may be poised for a rebound. Magnite James Edwards, managing partner of Maestria Partners, presented his best idea: Magnite , an online advertising technology provider based in Los Angeles. Magnite is the largest independent platform that helps companies such as Netflix and Disney monetize their advertising. The company, formed following a merger between Rubicon Project and Telaria in 2020, is benefiting from the changed landscape in the entertainment industry as bandwidth increased, content owners created on-demand libraries and ad technology evolved, Edwards said. "Connected television is the growth driver of the business, and it's about 44% of revenues. And this is basically the TV on your wall, which you stream content through," he said. "The other half of the business is mobile video that use[s] the mobile operating system as well as your legacy desktop or desktop computer or laptop." Edwards said Magnite can "easily" generate 30% to 40% expected returns. Blend Labs Gaurav Gupta, founder and chief investment officer at Floating Capital, was an early investor in several multibagger stocks , including Shopify , Square and Wayfair . Now he has eye on Blend Labs , a digital mortgage software company. Blend digitizes one out of every six mortgages in the U.S. However, due to the huge decline in mortgage volumes in recent years, Blend's shares have underperformed. The stock is down more than 80% since its 2021 IPO. Gupta said he expects mortgage volumes to revert to historical levels, which could give the stock a boost. The investor also highlighted the artificial intelligence tools Blend is launching to speed up mortgage processing. "You can see a scenario in which a refi demand actually picks up. You will also see a massive inflection in Blend's revenue," he said. Gupta has a price target of $8.50 for Blend by 2027, more than double the the current level near $3.55. BLND 5Y mountain Blend Labs since going public in 2021
