Best Innovative Companies to Own: 2026 Edition

“Disruptive innovation” can conjure up images of flying cars, lightsabers, or a brave new world. But these technologies may not be as far off as they seem.

Tech companies are using disruptive technologies like artificial intelligence to analyze large, complex datasets. The healthcare industry has created lifesaving drug therapies and treatments. And climate change is forcing energy and utilities companies to focus on renewable energy.

Investing in such disruptive innovation can be tricky, says Dave Sekera, Morningstar’s chief US market strategist.

“Because disruptive technology is such a broad, wide-reaching concept, it is difficult to identify companies that fall within the group,” he says.

The Morningstar Exponential Technologies Index holds around 250 stocks that Morningstar analysts expect to experience significant economic benefits from using or producing a new technology. The companies covered in this index touch on any combination of seven themes: artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and defense technology, energy innovation, financial technology innovation, healthcare innovation, next-generation transportation, and robotics. (Explore more about each theme in the index overview.)

But which of these companies, representing these seven emerging themes, have the competitive advantages and management teams to thrive?

Here are the 21 companies in the Morningstar Exponential Technologies Index that made our Best Companies to Own list for 2026.

Many of the companies on our Best Innovative Companies to Own list are exposed to multiple themes. Let’s take a closer look at what Morningstar thinks of Danaher DHR, which has healthcare innovation and robotics exposure.

Danaher

Danaher focuses primarily on manufacturing scientific instruments and consumables in the life sciences and diagnostic industries. The firm offers differentiated technology that is protected by various intangible assets, including patents, brands, copyrights, and trademarks. Since even slightly differentiated technical features can cause an end user to prefer one tool over another in Danaher’s precise scientific end markets, we see intangible assets around its differentiated technology and its ability to innovate in its target markets. Also, once its products are chosen because of their differentiated features for a specific application, Danaher is often able to layer on substantial switching costs for customers.

Through its Danaher Business System, Danaher aims for continuous improvement of its scientific technology portfolio by seeking out attractive markets and then making acquisitions to enter or expand within those fields and also divesting assets that are no longer seen as core, such as the recently divested Veralto operations. After acquisitions, Danaher aims to accelerate core growth at acquired companies by making research and development and marketing-related investments. It also implements lean manufacturing principles and administrative cost controls to boost operating margins. Overall, we appreciate Danaher’s strategic moves, which have pushed it into attractive end markets with strong growth prospects and sticky, recurring revenue streams.

The company’s acquisition-focused strategy has contributed to its becoming a top-five player in the highly fragmented and relatively stable life sciences and diagnostic tool markets, approximately 20 years after its first acquisition in the space (Radiometer in 2004). Important life sciences and diagnostic acquisitions have included Beckman Coulter, Pall, and Cepheid. In early 2020, Danaher completed its largest acquisition, GE Biopharma, now known as Cytiva, which fills some gaps for Danaher within the biopharmaceutical development and manufacturing tool market. We find the drug manufacturing part of the life sciences market particularly attractive given its strong growth trajectory, high margins, and high switching costs associated with regulatory and reproducibility concerns of end users. Management has started making more acquisitions in that space, such as Aldevron, and we would expect more tuck-in acquisitions in this and other end markets given its intense focus on acquisitions.

Danaher also continues to prune its portfolio of businesses. The recent divestiture of its environmental and applied solutions group (now called Veralto) is just the latest for the company, which distributed shares in the now publicly traded Fortive (industrials) to shareholders directly in 2016 and in Envista (dental) in 2019. Additional divestitures may be possible in the future as well.

Find the full list of companies and read about our selection methodology.