There's no doubt that money can be made by owning shares of unprofitable businesses. For example, biotech and mining exploration companies often lose money for years before finding success with a new treatment or mineral discovery. But while history lauds those rare successes, those that fail are often forgotten; who remembers Pets.com?

So, the natural question for Shearwater Group (LON:SWG) shareholders is whether they should be concerned by its rate of cash burn. In this report, we will consider the company's annual negative free cash flow, henceforth referring to it as the 'cash burn'. The first step is to compare its cash burn with its cash reserves, to give us its 'cash runway'.

Check out our latest analysis for Shearwater Group

Does Shearwater Group Have A Long 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. When Shearwater Group last reported its balance sheet in March 2022, it had zero debt and cash worth UK£5.6m. Importantly, its cash burn was UK£1.5m over the trailing twelve months. Therefore, from March 2022 it had 3.7 years of cash runway. Notably, however, analysts think that Shearwater Group will break even (at a free cash flow level) before then. If that happens, then the length of its cash runway, today, would become a moot point. Depicted below, you can see how its cash holdings have changed over time.

Is Shearwater Group's Revenue Growing?

We're hesitant to extrapolate on the recent trend to assess its cash burn, because Shearwater Group actually had positive free cash flow last year, so operating revenue growth is probably our best bet to measure, right now. While it's not that amazing, we still think that the 13% increase in revenue from operations was a positive. Clearly, however, the crucial factor is whether the company will grow its business going forward. So you might want to take a peek at how much the company is expected to grow in the next few years.

How Easily Can Shearwater Group Raise Cash?

While Shearwater Group is showing solid revenue growth, it's still worth considering how easily it could raise more cash, even just to fuel faster growth. Generally speaking, a listed business can raise new cash through issuing shares or taking on debt. One of the main advantages held by publicly listed companies is that they can sell shares to investors to raise cash and fund 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).