Even when a business is losing money, it's possible for shareholders to make money if they buy a good business at the right price. 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 EMvision Medical Devices (ASX:EMV) 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). We'll start by comparing its cash burn with its cash reserves in order to calculate its cash runway.

Check out our latest analysis for EMvision Medical Devices

When Might EMvision Medical Devices Run Out Of Money?

A cash runway is defined as the length of time it would take a company to run out of money if it kept spending at its current rate of cash burn. When EMvision Medical Devices last reported its balance sheet in December 2021, it had zero debt and cash worth AU$11m. Importantly, its cash burn was AU$3.7m over the trailing twelve months. Therefore, from December 2021 it had 2.8 years of cash runway. That's decent, giving the company a couple years to develop its business. Depicted below, you can see how its cash holdings have changed over time. debt-equity-history-analysis

How Well Is EMvision Medical Devices Growing?

At first glance it's a bit worrying to see that EMvision Medical Devices actually boosted its cash burn by 46%, year on year. Having said that, it's revenue is up a very solid 76% in the last year, so there's plenty of reason to believe in the growth story. The company needs to keep up that growth, if it is to really please shareholders. Considering the factors above, the company doesn’t fare badly when it comes to assessing how it is changing over time. Of course, we've only taken a quick look at the stock's growth metrics, here. You can take a look at how EMvision Medical Devices is growing revenue over time by checking  this visualization of past revenue growth.

Can EMvision Medical Devices Raise More Cash Easily?

There's no doubt EMvision Medical Devices seems to be in a fairly good position, when it comes to managing its cash burn, but even if it's only hypothetical, it's always worth asking how easily it could raise more money to fund growth. Companies can raise capital through either debt or equity. Commonly, a business will sell new shares in itself to raise cash and drive 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.

Since it has a market capitalisation of AU$140m, EMvision Medical Devices' AU$3.7m in cash burn equates to about 2.7% of its market value. So it could almost certainly just borrow a little to fund another year's growth, or else easily raise the cash by issuing a few shares.

So, Should We Worry About EMvision Medical Devices' Cash Burn?

As you can probably tell by now, we're not too worried about EMvision Medical Devices' cash burn. In particular, we think its revenue growth stands out as evidence that the company is well on top of its spending. Although its increasing cash burn does give us reason for pause, the other metrics we discussed in this article form a positive picture overall. Looking at all the measures in this article, together, we're not worried about its rate of cash burn; the company seems well on top of its medium-term spending needs. On another note, we conducted an in-depth investigation of the company, and identified 4 warning signs for EMvision Medical Devices (1 is significant!) that you should be aware of before investing here.

If you would prefer to check out another company with better fundamentals, then do not miss this freelist 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.

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