With small caps surging, here are 10 of the most widely held ASX names

Someone has lit a fuse and fired a rocket underneath Australian small caps.

As at the start of August, the All Ordinaries Index – a market-weighted index built around the 500 largest companies on the ASX – and the Small Ordinaries Index – a market-weighted index that includes all companies that are in the ASX 300 less the 100 largest companies – were neck and neck, up just over 4.2% since 16 October 2024.

But then, as reporting season kicked in, the smaller end of the ASX took off.

As at the close of trading on 15 October 2025, the Small Ordinaries was up more than 21.4% over the last 52 weeks. The larger and more popular All Ordinaries Index? Up only 8.5%.

With small caps soaring, I decided to look to see which stocks Australia’s leading small-cap investors are backing.

The methodology

To find this out, I created an admittedly not exhaustive list of 20 of Australia’s leading small-cap fund managers – many of whom we are fortunate enough to hear from here at Livewire. Accessing their latest monthly or quartely report, I then logged their top five (or three in some cases) positions, as well as any other company that they discussed favourably.

The final numbers?

Of the 66 companies in total:

• 21 were held by two funds
• Five were held by three funds
• Five were held by four funds

So, which stocks are Australia’s top small-cap investors backing? Below are the five companies that were discussed by at least four different small cap fund managers.

Aussie Broadband (ASX: ABB)

Aussie Broadband is a growing telecommunication company with an 8.4% market share, making it the fifth largest provider of NBN services.

James Barker, Co-Portfolio manager of the Ellerston Australian MicroCap Fund, recently discussed how Aussie Broadband was one of the companies benefiting from the shift away from large telcos to the smaller “challenger” brands.

Generation Development Group (ASX: GDG)

Generation Development Group is the market leader in investment bonds and lifetime annuities in Australia, run by none other than Olympic gold medallist, Grant Hackett.

A recent selection as one of Bell Potter’s top picks for October, based on the belief that GDG is at the beginning of a multi-year growth runway, it has also been popular amongst fund managers.

QVG’s Chris Prunty, listed GDG as a stock that is able to grow despite a “low-growth backdrop”. Ophir’s Andrew Mitchell believes that its acquisitions of Evidentia and Lonsec help build further scale and add to their already “huge lead”. Finally, Centennial Asset Management’s Matthew Kidman believes that Grant Hackett and his team have evolved the business and thinks they can continue to innovate.

SiteMinder (ASX: SDR)

SiteMinder operates an enterprise software platform that assists more than 50,000 hotel properties in managing all facets of their business, including bookings and revenue management.

Since August, when it announced annual recurring revenue growth of 27% and an increase in operating profit (before depreciation and amortisation) from $0.9m in FY24 to $14.3m, its share price has rebounded after a barren few months.

Lakehouse Capital’s Donny Buchanan called SiteMinder a rare offering on the ASX due to its clean balance sheet, strong unit economics and growing profitability.

SiteMinder was also recently named one of Macquarie’s top small caps following the recent reporting season.

Superloop (ASX: SLC)

Like Aussie Broadband, Superloop is another challenger looking to take the fight to Australia's largest telecom companies.

Superloop ended the FY25 financial year strong with total customers increasing 60% to just under 731,000. It also saw its NBN market share increase from around 4.0% to 6.8%. This growth helped fuel revenue growth of around 31% over the twelve months to June 30.

Back in May, Superloop was listed as a Buy by both Ellerston's James Barker and Ausbil's Andrew Peros on Buy, Hold, Sell. Barker calling it a business that has gone from "strength to strength", highlighting how it has been winning market share and whose price increases should help them in FY26 and beyond. Peros was impressed by the company's "fantastic balance sheet" and "good management team". Both believed that Superloop had plenty of opportunity for growth ahead of it.

Zip Co (ASX: ZIP)

Zip Co was one of Australia’s pioneers in “buy now, pay later”, which now boasts more than 6.3 million active customers and is available across more than 85,000 merchants.

Zip was a recent selection from Pendal’s Brenton Saunders, who told Buy Hold Sell that he really likes the financial services firm and that it ticked a bunch of boxes for growth stocks.

After discussing how, when it came close to bankruptcy, Zip was forced into a complete clean-out of the company, he expressed his support for the business's current strategy. This strategy merges a stable or modestly growing Australian business with a very fast-growing, capital-light, and profitable US business.

Other names to consider

Other than the names highlighted above, there were a handful of other stocks owned by three funds, including Codan (ASX: CDA), Genesis Minerals (ASX: GMD), Life360 (ASX: 360), Supply Networks (ASX: SNL) and Tuas (ASX: TUA).