Top 5 ASX small-cap shares to watch in 2025

What are small-cap shares?

Small-cap shares are the stocks of publicly listed companies that have a market capitalisation of between A$250 million and A$2 billion – in the Australian market. In the US market, which is bigger, USD is used to denote the size of a company.

Market capitalisation (or market cap) is calculated by multiplying the current share price by the number of outstanding shares in the company.

While they involve greater risk than their large-scale peers, small-cap shares also bring the promise of more lucrative rewards, given their higher growth potential as modest-sized companies.

As a result of this smaller size, they’re often overlooked by both institutional and retail share traders – especially given that players such as mutual funds will only invest in companies that have exceeded a certain market cap threshold.

Small-cap stocks are also often overlooked by pundits and financial reporters, who prefer instead to focus on bigger companies with higher profiles and much larger market values.

Why trade ASX-listed small-cap shares?

Share traders should give some attention to ASX-listed small-cap shares, given how their modest scale comes with potential advantages. By definition, they have far greater growth potential than large-scale companies that may have already maxed out in size. For this reason, small-cap shares have the potential to deliver greater capital gains.

The ASX is teeming with small-cap shares, such as in the resources, industrials, telecommunications and real estate sectors.

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) began cutting interest rates this year for the first time since 2020.¹ While it’s true that small-cap shares in Australia have underperformed compared to the broader market over the past few years, the interest rate cuts are set to push them to do better.

This is because, during tough economic times, consumers feel the pinch and tighten their budgets, which has a greater effect on small caps’ bottom lines – more so than their larger counterparts. At the same time, rising inflation affects smaller companies’ margins.

So, with dropping interest rates, we think now is the time to start watching small-cap shares on the ASX.

Risks of trading ASX small-cap shares

Share traders should also remain aware of the risks that accompany the greater growth potential of small-cap shares. These include higher volatility during periods of market uncertainty and lower liquidity due to a smaller pool of interested buyers and sellers.

Smaller, fledgling companies can also be riskier share trading propositions than larger companies, given they may not have established markets or access to favourable financing terms.

Top 5 ASX small-cap shares to watch

Despite the comparative lack of attention given to them, most of the roughly 2,000 companies that are listed on the ASX are categorised as small-cap shares. The benchmark indicator for the ASX small-cap share market is the S&P/ASX Small Ordinaries Index (ASX: XSO), which is designed to measure companies included in the S&P/ASX 300 but not in the S&P/ASX 100.

Overview of the shares in this article

With us, all the shares on this list can be traded via CFDs, except Ora Banda Mining, and all of them can be share traded by buying the stocks themselves with a share trading account.

1. WA1 Resources Limited (ASX: WA1)
 

Industry: Mining

Market cap: A$1.15 billion²

Current focus: Niobium mining

WA1 Resources holds the world’s second-best niobium deposit, and has delineated roughly 200 million tons of 1% niobium. This deposit is extremely large – think a multi-generational, tier one asset. Niobium is also a scarce commodity, driving the company’s future value up.

Why is niobium so important? It’s an alloying element, strengthening, toughening and giving high-temperature properties to steel and other metals. It’s crucial in the manufacturing of pipelines, aerospace components and medical equipment, like MRIs.

As we look at in our top five uranium stocks to watch in 2025 article, nuclear power is set to grow in use, which makes niobium an important element of the future.

Highlights:

• As per its latest half-year results report, WA1 had a cash balance of A$86.542 million³
• The company is actively looking for new projects, while maintaining a focus on existing ones⁴

2. Centuria Capital Group (ASX: CNI)
 

Industry: Real estate, funds management and data centre ownership

Market cap: A$1.47 billion⁵

Current focus: Passive property, funds management and data centres

Centuria Capital is a 25-year-old company with more than A$20 billion assets under management, along with over 380 properties and 100,000+ investors.⁶ It operates primarily in commercial property, servicing a range of industries, including office, industrial, retail, healthcare and agriculture.

In 2024, the company secured a 50% stake in ResetData, a business that enables users to choose, train and deploy AI, giving public access to machine learning (ML) and large language models (LLMs). One of Centuria Capital’s goals here is to eliminate wastewater, reduce computing costs and cut emissions in its data centres.

The company claims legacy data centres use 5% of Australia’s energy and use 47 billion litres of water per year.⁷

Highlights:

• In its latest half-year report, Centuria Capital states it has a group development pipeline of A$2.2 billion⁸
• Centuria’s real estate platform is diversified across the following:⁹

3. Superloop Limited (ASX: SLC)
 

Industry: Telecommunications

Market cap: A$1.61 billion¹⁰

Current focus: Fibre provision

Superloop operates in three segments:

• Consumer: internet and mobile phone products for residential use
• Business: services for small, medium and large corporations
• Wholesale: services for large-scale telecommunications, data and tech customers, as well as retail internet service providers

The company was recently awarded an exclusive six-year contract to provide internet services to Origin Energy – a massive boon for the telecommunications provider.

In its latest half-year results, the company reported a growth of 30.6% in total revenue to A$258.1 million.¹² This was driven by solid performance in its consumer and wholesale segments.

The Origin contract also helped Superloop make headway; it successfully migrated 130,000 Origin customers and increased its customer base by 62.6%.¹³

Highlights:

• The share price is up 30.77% over the past six months
• Has over 664,000 customers¹⁴
• In the most recent half-year results, EBIDTA, total income, net profit after tax and operating cash flow were all up¹⁵

4. Qoria (ASX: QOR)
 

Industry: Technology

Market cap: A$753.50 million¹⁵

Current focus: Solutions for schools and parents to protect children online

Qoria (previously known as Family Zone Cyber Safety Limited) is a global technology company with interests in North America, Asia Pacific, the UK and EMEA. It services 29,000 schools and helps protect 27 million children globally.¹⁶

Its services include real-time technologies, advanced reporting, and education and training programmes. Within these are:

• Parental control and monitoring software
• School-based cyber safety
• Content filtering and firewall services

The company has a growing market, with concerns over child digital safety mounting around the world. Its subscription-based service helps to ensure future business, and its approach of acquiring other businesses to grow has seen it expand rapidly.

Highlights:

• Its annual recurring revenue (ARR) – a metric used for subscription-based businesses – was up to A$29 million, a 25% growth year over year (YoY)¹⁷
• EBIDTA of A$15.4 million, up a whopping 670% from FY24¹⁸
• Its FY26 guidance predicts revenue of over A$140 million¹⁹

5. Ora Banda Mining Limited (ASX: OBM)
 

Industry: Mining

Market cap: A$1.29 billion²⁰

Current focus: Gold exploration

Ora Banda outright owns the highly productive Davyhurst Gold Project in the eastern goldfields region of Western Australia.

It has a ‘Drive to 150’ growth strategy, which aims to increase the company’s production levels to 150,000 ounces in the FY ending June 2026. The all-in sustaining cost of this would be between A$1,740 and A$1,890 per ounce.

While its share price has dropped over the past six months, its ownership over the Davyhurst Gold Project sets Ora Banda Mining up in a strong position within the competitive gold mining sector in Australia.

Furthermore, analysts expect gold prices to hold strong through the second half of 2025.

Highlights:

• Downtime at the Davyhurst processing plant during April and May are over and the company is back up to standard as of June 2025²¹
• The 2025 production forecast is a 35% increase over 2024’s 70,000 ounces²³

How to trade small-cap shares with IG AU

CFDs

1. Open a CFD trading account with IG AU
2. Search for ASX small-cap shares on the IG platform
3. Decide whether to go long (buy) or short (sell)
4. Choose your position size
5. Set stop-loss and limit orders
6. Place your trade and monitor it

Share trading

1. Open a share trading account with IG AU
2. Search for ASX small-cap shares available for direct ownership
3. Choose the shares you want to buy
4. Determine how many shares you want to purchase
5. Place your order
6. Monitor your investment and collect any dividends

FAQs about small-cap shares 

Footnotes
 

1. Morningstar, July 2025
2. TradingView, July 2025
3. WA1 half-year results, March 2025
4. WA1 half-year results, March 2025
5. TradingView, July 2025
6. Centuria Capital, July 2025
7. Centuria Capital, July 2025
8. Centuria Capital half-year results, February 2025
9. Centuria Capital half-year results, February 2025
10. TradingView, July 2025
11. TipRanks, February 2025
12. TipRanks, February 2025
13. Superloop, February 2025
14. Superloop, February 2025
15. TradingView, July 2025
16. Qoria, July 2025
17. Qoria quarterly update, June 2025
18. Qoria quarterly update, June 2025
19. Qoria quarterly update, June 2025
20. TradingView, July 2025
21. Mining Weekly, June 2025
22. Mining Weekly, June 2025