Following its $26.2 billion acquisition of LinkedIn Corp., Microsoft Corp. could become the first technology company to see its market value hit $1 trillion.

That prediction comes from respected financial analyst Michael Markowski, who was previously named by Fortune as one of its “top 50 greatest investors” and correctly predicted the bankruptcy of investment firm Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. one year before it happened.

Writing in Equities.com, he said Microsoft is set to reach the milestone ahead of rival firms Amazon.com Inc., Google Inc., Facebook Inc., and Apple Inc. Markowski reckons Microsoft’s acquisition of LinkedIn will help it to reach the magic number first for a surprising reason: It will become a leader in the social media and crowdfunding industries. In his analysis, Markowski says this is what will propel the company forward for years to come.

Why crowdfunding? Well, Markowski reckons that this emerging market has been opened up by a pair of rulings from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this year. The first ruling allow companies to advertise directly to the public, and the second allows those who’re not accredited investors – defined as those making over $200,000 a year, or those with a net worth in excess of $1 million – to take part in additional kinds of investments. As such, Markowski reckons online crowdfunding will become as much of a game changer as things like the advent of the Internet, email, social media, smartphones and apps.

“The public has an insatiable appetite for making small bets and purchasing lottery tickets, etc., that provide the chance to make a big profit,” Markowski said. “The millennials will be a good example. Many will want to routinely invest $100 or even less into high-risk ventures that could produce returns of 10X to 100X.”

Microsoft certainly has a way to go to get to a $1 trillion valuation. As of Monday, Apple remained the most valuable tech company in the world:

1. Apple: $622.6B
2. Alphabet: $549.7B
3. Microsoft: $489.3B
4. Amazon: $358.7B
5. Facebook: $337.6B

Markowski predicts that all of those companies will create services to facilitate crowdfunding. But he says Microsoft is best placed to take advantage of this trend thanks to its acquisition of LinkedIn, which gives it a monopoly on social media’s business sphere.

Markowski also credits the excellent performance of Microsoft’s Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella (above), who is now entering his third year at the company’s helm. He notes that Microsoft’s stock hit an all-time high in October and has continued climbing since then, a resurgence that he says has been driven chiefly by its Azure cloud platform and its line of Surface products.

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