Catapult Group's Collapse From $7 to Under $3 Doesn't Match Its Growth

Fund managers say AI-disruption fears, index exclusion and tax-loss selling, not the business itself, explain the sports analytics stock's plunge.

30 Sep 2026 · 3 min read

Catapult Group has been one of the more extreme casualties of the AI-disruption sell-off that swept ASX software names through 2026, falling from around $7 to under $3 even as the sports analytics and wearables company kept delivering annualised contract value growth above 25 percent, rising profitability, and a balance sheet carrying no debt.

Cheap, sticky and hard to disrupt

Forager Funds described Catapult's product as mission-critical software at an average cost of around $28,000 to $29,000 per professional team per year, a figure it called a drop in the ocean compared with player salaries, while noting that years of accumulated player performance data sit with Catapult, creating genuinely high switching costs for any team considering leaving. Ellerston Capital grouped Catapult with Life360 as two names it believes the market has wrongly priced for AI disruption, arguing the proprietary data underpinning both businesses cannot be easily recreated by a generic AI model, with each still growing revenue above 20 percent. Pengana Capital Group made a related point, noting that as the incumbent in sports analytics, Catapult holds contracted access to unique data and algorithms that new competitors simply do not have.

You've got the data for all your players going back many years, that's owned by Catapult, and if you decided to churn off, you've lost that data. Really high switching costs.

— Forager Funds, Presentation, April 2026

A round trip in and out of the stock

Forager Funds had actually exited its long-held Catapult position in September 2025 after it reached what the fund considered very full valuations, only to buy back in as the price fell through the first months of 2026, making it the fourth-largest position in its $170 million Australian share fund. QVG Capital noted a March trading update showed year-end contracted revenue almost 5 percent ahead of consensus, even as the stock remained down 22 percent for the year. Lakehouse Capital summed up the whiplash bluntly, noting Catapult went from being its top contributor to its largest single detractor within twelve months, despite little fundamental change in the underlying business or investment thesis.

The FY26 result: growth, profitability and a clean balance sheet

Selector Funds Management reported FY26 revenue of US$141 million, up 19 percent in constant currency and 95 percent recurring, with management EBITDA up 67 percent to US$24.7 million, and the company ending the year with US$53 million of cash and no debt following an October capital raise used to acquire football scouting and analytics business IMPECT. Lakehouse Capital detailed headline annualised contract value up 28 percent in constant currency to US$133.8 million, or 18 percent adjusting for acquisitions, with the number of professional teams using the product up 16 percent and churn improving to 3.9 percent.

A case for a compelling mispricing

Seneca Financial Solutions made perhaps the sharpest case for the disconnect, arguing Catapult's underlying business continues to perform well despite shares trading down from $7.00 to under $3.00, and identifying a combination of technical factors, rather than fundamentals, behind the fall.

We see a compelling opportunity arising from erroneous assumptions about AI disruption, index exclusion, and tax-loss selling.

— Seneca Financial Solutions, Article, July 2026

Not everyone is convinced on profitability

Wilson Asset Management stayed at hold, agreeing top-line and annualised recurring revenue growth has been strong, but noting the statutory result remains loss-making once one-off costs, capitalised costs and share-based payments are accounted for, and that it currently prefers other technology names it expects to rally first. Endeavor Asset Management took the opposite view, keeping Catapult among its high-conviction picks for a small-cap technology rebound and expecting close to 20 percent annual revenue growth from new client wins, new product sales and cross-selling into its existing base of professional and elite sports teams.

What fund managers say they are watching next is whether Catapult keeps growing annualised contract value toward the US$1 billion long-term ambition flagged at its investor day, whether churn continues improving from its current level near 4 percent, how well the IMPECT and Perch acquisitions integrate, and whether the technical pressures Seneca points to, including index exclusion and tax-loss selling, unwind to help close the gap between the share price and the business's underlying growth.