My first encounter with virtual reality (VR) was with my 84-year-old mother, who recently fractured her pelvis and now does exercises under the virtual guidance of her physical therapist. Watching mom do knee bends while wearing a headset helped me realize that VR had finally reached an inflection point.

Virtual reality is taking the world by storm and it represents one of the greatest growth opportunities of your lifetime, if you pick the right investment. We’ve done the homework for you, by pinpointing a “small-cap rocket” that makes proprietary technology necessary for VR to function. You’ll find the details below.

Once or twice in a generation, an innovation comes along that revolutionizes society. Electricity, telephony, railroads, aviation, radio, television, personal computing, digitization… these game-changers seemed to come from nowhere. Those who acted fast and invested early in these industries made fortunes.

Thomas Edison’s small company that made electrical gadgets became General Electric (NYSE: GE). Alexander Graham Bell’s miraculous speaking device became AT&T (NYSE: T). William Boeing’s flying contraptions became Boeing (NYSE: BA). The tinkering of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in a garage became Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL). The list goes on.

We’ve found the next Apple…

The advent of paradigm-shifting innovations didn’t die with Steve Jobs. In fact, in the burgeoning realm of VR, we’ve found the next Apple.

Jim Pearce, chief investment strategist of Personal Finance, our flagship publication, puts it this way: “This small company’s technology is going to end up in every VR device. No matter whose name is on the box. When that happens, its share price could skyrocket by as much as 5,000%, 10,000%, maybe even 20,000%.”

I know that probably sounds hard to believe, but when Jim speaks, I listen. You should, too. He’s also the director of portfolio strategy for Investing Daily and the director of Investing Daily’s Wealth Society. Years ago, he told me to invest in smartphone chip maker Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM), but regrettably I waited too long. Since going public in 1991, the stock has gained more than 8,485%.

Jim expects his VR small-cap recommendation to follow a similarly parabolic path to riches.

“This company is largely unknown, yet it it produces a technology vital to virtual reality, which is set to be a multi-billion-dollar industry,” Jim says. “A throng of tech giants is about to flood the market with virtual reality devices that could literally make every smartphone on the planet obsolete.”

To boldly go where no investor has gone before…

Among all the mind-bending possibilities for the future offered by science fiction, the Star Trek franchise’s holodeck is perhaps the most exciting. The holodeck is a room that projects in life-like 3D anything that you can imagine, whether it’s a tropical island paradise, a raging battlefield, a ski slope, or a parachute jump. It can even project… how shall I put this? An amorous encounter.

But you don’t have to wait for the 25^th century. Science fiction is rapidly becoming science fact, as VR is adopted for a wide range of commercial and personal uses. VR isn’t just for video games. Doctors are using it for pre-surgical evaluations; the military for training; realtors to show homes; auto manufacturers to build virtual prototypes of new vehicles… you name it.

And thanks to a new shopping experience implemented this month by China-based e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding (NYSE: BABA), consumers who shop the company’s virtual shopping mall through VR goggles can simply nod to make a purchase, rather than taking off their goggles and whipping out smartphones or wallets.

The moneymaking opportunities of VR are enormous. Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) estimates that the market for VR will reach $80 billion by 2025, with the potential for that figure to actually soar much higher to $180 billion.

Many of the companies developing VR hardware and software are among the biggest names in technology, including Apple, Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG), Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), Facebook (NASDAQ: FB), and Sony NYSE: SNE).

A host of smaller players are emerging in the VR space, but many are thinly capitalized and quickly burning through their cash reserves. Most of them will either get acquired or go belly up.

Not our resilient small cap, though. It’s a tiny $9 stock that will explode when its VR technology makes its way into millions of homes, schools, and businesses around the world.

There’s still time to get in on the ground floor. Click here to see Jim’s presentation.

It’s time for you to fess up…

I just told you about the money that I left on the table, by waiting too long to invest in chip maker Qualcomm. It still bugs me. Do you have a similar story to tell? I’d love to share your tale with readers. These anecdotes are instructional and for you, it’ll be cathartic! Drop me a line at mailbag@investingdaily.com. — John Persinos