Baron Funds, an investment management company, released its "Baron Small Cap Fund" first-quarter 2025 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. In the first quarter of 2025, the fund was down 9.07% (Institutional Shares) compared to the Russell 2000 Growth Index's (the Index) -11.12% return. Small-cap stocks continued to underperform larger market caps meaningfully, so the Fund lagged the Russell 3000 Index, which fell 4.72% in the quarter. In addition, please check the fund's top five holdings to know its best picks in 2025.

In its first-quarter 2025 investor letter, Baron Small Cap Fund highlighted stocks such as PAR Technology Corporation (NYSE:PAR). PAR Technology Corporation (NYSE:PAR) offers omnichannel cloud-based hardware and software solutions to the restaurant and retail industries. The one-month return of PAR Technology Corporation (NYSE:PAR) was 10.27%, and its shares gained 36.43% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On May 23, 2025, PAR Technology Corporation (NYSE:PAR) stock closed at $65.95 per share with a market capitalization of $2.671 billion.

Baron Small Cap Fund stated the following regarding PAR Technology Corporation (NYSE:PAR) in its Q1 2025 investor letter: