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. But while the successes are well known, investors should not ignore the very many unprofitable companies that simply burn through all their cash and collapse.

So should Itaconix (LON:ITX) shareholders be worried about its cash burn? In this report, we will consider the company's annual negative free cash flow, henceforth referring to it as the 'cash burn'. First, we'll determine its cash runway by comparing its cash burn with its cash reserves.

View our latest analysis for Itaconix

How Long Is Itaconix's Cash Runway?

A company's cash runway is calculated by dividing its cash hoard by its cash burn. As at December 2023, Itaconix had cash of US$8.8m and no debt. Looking at the last year, the company burnt through US$2.2m. Therefore, from December 2023 it had 4.0 years of cash runway. A runway of this length affords the company the time and space it needs to develop the business. The image below shows how its cash balance has been changing over the last few years.

How Well Is Itaconix Growing?

One thing for shareholders to keep front in mind is that Itaconix increased its cash burn by 683% in the last twelve months. On the bright side, at least operating revenue was up 40% over the same period, giving some cause for hope. In light of the data above, we're fairly sanguine about the business growth trajectory. 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.

How Hard Would It Be For Itaconix To Raise More Cash For Growth?

Itaconix seems to be in a fairly good position, in terms of cash burn, but we still think it's worthwhile considering how easily it could raise more money if it wanted to. Generally speaking, a listed business can raise new cash through issuing shares or taking on debt. Commonly, a business will sell new shares in itself to raise cash and drive growth. By comparing a company's annual cash burn to its total market capitalisation, we can estimate roughly how many shares it would have to issue in order to run the company for another year (at the same burn rate).

Itaconix has a market capitalisation of US$25m and burnt through US$2.2m last year, which is 8.6% of the company's market value. Given that is a rather small percentage, it would probably be really easy for the company to fund another year's growth by issuing some new shares to investors, or even by taking out a loan.