There's no doubt that money can be made by owning shares of unprofitable businesses. For example, although Amazon.com made losses for many years after listing, if you had bought and held the shares since 1999, you would have made a fortune. Nonetheless, only a fool would ignore the risk that a loss making company burns through its cash too quickly.

So, the natural question for Aroa Biosurgery (ASX:ARX) shareholders is whether they should be concerned by its rate of cash burn. For the purpose of this article, we'll define cash burn as the amount of cash the company is spending each year to fund its growth (also called its negative free cash flow). Let's start with an examination of the business' cash, relative to its cash burn.

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How Long Is Aroa Biosurgery's Cash Runway?

A company's cash runway is the amount of time it would take to burn through its cash reserves at its current cash burn rate. As at September 2024, Aroa Biosurgery had cash of NZ$22m and no debt. In the last year, its cash burn was NZ$11m. So it had a cash runway of about 2.0 years from September 2024. Importantly, though, analysts think that Aroa Biosurgery will reach cashflow breakeven before then. If that happens, then the length of its cash runway, today, would become a moot point. The image below shows how its cash balance has been changing over the last few years.

Check out our latest analysis for Aroa Biosurgery

How Well Is Aroa Biosurgery Growing?

We reckon the fact that Aroa Biosurgery managed to shrink its cash burn by 27% over the last year is rather encouraging. And operating revenue was up by 16% too. Considering the factors above, the company doesn’t fare badly when it comes to assessing how it is changing over time. While the past is always worth studying, it is the future that matters most of all. For that reason, it makes a lot of sense to take a look at our analyst forecasts for the company.

Can Aroa Biosurgery Raise More Cash Easily?

While Aroa Biosurgery seems to be in a fairly good position, it's still worth considering how easily it could raise more cash, even just to fuel faster growth. Issuing new shares, or taking on debt, are the most common ways for a listed company to raise more money for its business. One of the main advantages held by publicly listed companies is that they can sell shares to investors to raise cash and fund growth. We can compare a company's cash burn to its market capitalisation to get a sense for how many new shares a company would have to issue to fund one year's operations.

Aroa Biosurgery has a market capitalisation of NZ$166m and burnt through NZ$11m last year, which is 6.6% of the company's market value. That's a low proportion, so we figure the company would be able to raise more cash to fund growth, with a little dilution, or even to simply borrow some money.

How Risky Is Aroa Biosurgery's Cash Burn Situation?

As you can probably tell by now, we're not too worried about Aroa Biosurgery's cash burn. For example, we think its cash burn relative to its market cap suggests that the company is on a good path. And even though its cash burn reduction wasn't quite as impressive, it was still a positive. It's clearly very positive to see that analysts are forecasting the company will break even fairly soon. After considering a range of factors in this article, we're pretty relaxed about its cash burn, since the company seems to be in a good position to continue to fund its growth. Its important for readers to be cognizant of the risks that can affect the company's operations, and we've picked out 1 warning sign for Aroa Biosurgery that investors should know when investing in the stock.

If you would prefer to check out another company with better fundamentals, then do not miss this free list of interesting companies, that have HIGH return on equity and low debt or this list of stocks which are all forecast to grow.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.