Reviewing Materialise (NASDAQ:MTLS) and Intellicheck (NASDAQ:IDN)

Materialise (NASDAQ:MTLS) and Intellicheck (NASDAQ:IDN) are both small-cap technology companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their risk, analyst recommendations, valuation, profitability, earnings, institutional ownership and dividends.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and recommmendations for Materialise and Intellicheck, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Materialise	0	2	1	0	2.33
Intellicheck	0	3	3	0	2.50

Materialise currently has a consensus price target of $10.00, suggesting a potential upside of 30.89%. Intellicheck has a consensus price target of $6.50, suggesting a potential upside of 150.00%. Given Intellicheck’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Intellicheck is more favorable than Materialise.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

19.3% of Materialise shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 42.8% of Intellicheck shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.2% of Materialise shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 7.8% of Intellicheck shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Profitability

This table compares Materialise and Intellicheck’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Materialise	4.85%	5.20%	3.17%
Intellicheck	13.03%	15.02%	12.27%

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Materialise and Intellicheck”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Materialise	$302.73 million	1.49	$8.73 million	$0.27	28.30
Intellicheck	$24.11 million	2.19	$1.27 million	$0.15	17.33

Materialise has higher revenue and earnings than Intellicheck. Intellicheck is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Materialise, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Risk & Volatility

Materialise has a beta of 1.36, suggesting that its stock price is 36% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Intellicheck has a beta of 0.78, suggesting that its stock price is 22% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Intellicheck beats Materialise on 9 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Materialise

Materialise NV provides additive manufacturing and medical software, and 3D printing services in the Americas, Europe and Africa, and the Asia-Pacific. The company operates through three segments: Materialise Software, Materialise Medical, and Materialise Manufacturing. The Materialise Software segment offers software through programs and platforms that enable and enhance the functionality of 3D printers and of 3D printing operations. Its software interfaces between various types of 3D printers; and various software applications and capturing technologies, including computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing packages and 3D scanners. This segment serves 3D printing machine manufacturers; production companies and contract manufacturers in automotive, aerospace, consumer goods, and hearing aid industries; and 3D printing service bureaus through its sales force, Website, and third party distributors. The Materialise Medical segment provides medical software that allows medical-image based analysis, planning, and engineering, as well as patient-specific design and printing of surgical devices and implants. It serves medical device companies, hospitals, universities, research institutes, and industrial companies through its direct sales force, Website, and picture archiving and communication system. The Materialise Manufacturing segment provides 3D printing services, design and engineering services, and rapid prototyping and additive manufacturing of production parts to industrial and commercial customers. The company has collaboration agreements with Zimmer Biomet Holdings, Inc.; Encore Medical, L.P.; DePuy Synthes Companies of Johnson & Johnson; Limacorporate Spa; Mathys AG; Corin Ltd; Smith & Nephew Inc.; Corin Ltd; Medtronic Inc.; and Abbott Laboratories Inc. Materialise NV was incorporated in 1990 and is headquartered in Leuven, Belgium.

About Intellicheck

Intellicheck, Inc., a technology company, develops, integrates, and markets threat identification and identity authentication solutions for bank and retail fraud prevention, law enforcement threat identification, and mobile and handheld access control and security systems primarily in the United States. It provides identity systems products, including commercial identification products, such as Intellicheck Platform, an identity solution that checks whether an ID is valid, matches the ID to the person presenting it, and provides a risk score to determine the risk of doing business with that person; IDN-Portal that provides the ability to scan an ID using a mobile phone; IDN-Portal+ that uses a retail scanner to validate an ID, and get additional data for analytics and analysis; IDN-Direct that provides access to additional data and the ability to use the platform’s Risk Score capability to help with decision-making; and Intellicheck mobile app, which provides the ability to login and scan an ID. The company also offers State Aware Software solution, which provides or restricts information that is electronically scanned from an ID based on the electronic reading laws according to the state in which the ID is scanned; data collection devices that enable its software applications to be used on a variety of commercially available credit card terminals, PDAs, tablets, laptops, desktops, mobile phones, and point-of-sale terminals; and instant credit application kiosk software applications. It serves government, military, and commercial markets. The company was formerly known as Intellicheck Mobilisa, Inc. and changed its name to Intellicheck, Inc. in May 2017. Intellicheck, Inc. was incorporated in 1994 and is headquartered in Melville, New York.