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We can readily understand why investors are attracted to unprofitable companies. 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 the harsh reality is that very many loss making companies burn through all their cash and go bankrupt.
So, the natural question for 10x Genomics (NASDAQ:TXG) shareholders is whether they should be concerned by its rate of cash burn. In this article, we define cash burn as its annual (negative) free cash flow, which is the amount of money a company spends each year to fund its growth. First, we'll determine its cash runway by comparing its cash burn with its cash reserves.
Check out our latest analysis for 10x Genomics
How Long Is 10x Genomics' Cash Runway?
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. As at June 2022, 10x Genomics had cash of US$500m and no debt. Importantly, its cash burn was US$161m over the trailing twelve months. That means it had a cash runway of about 3.1 years as of June 2022. Notably, analysts forecast that 10x Genomics will break even (at a free cash flow level) in about 3 years. So there's a very good chance it won't need more cash, when you consider the burn rate will be reducing in that period. You can see how its cash balance has changed over time in the image below.
How Well Is 10x Genomics Growing?
It was fairly positive to see that 10x Genomics reduced its cash burn by 39% during the last year. And considering that its operating revenue gained 23% during that period, that's great to see. It seems to be growing nicely. 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 Easily Can 10x Genomics Raise Cash?
There's no doubt 10x Genomics 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. 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. 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.
10x Genomics' cash burn of US$161m is about 4.9% of its US$3.3b market capitalisation. 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.