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. Nonetheless, only a fool would ignore the risk that a loss making company burns through its cash too quickly.

Given this risk, we thought we'd take a look at whether Aware (NASDAQ:AWRE) shareholders should 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'. 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 Aware

When Might Aware Run Out Of Money?

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 Aware last reported its balance sheet in September 2023, it had zero debt and cash worth US$28m. In the last year, its cash burn was US$2.3m. That means it had a cash runway of very many years as of September 2023. While this is only one measure of its cash burn situation, it certainly gives us the impression that holders have nothing to worry about. You can see how its cash balance has changed over time in the image below.

How Well Is Aware Growing?

Aware managed to reduce its cash burn by 59% over the last twelve months, which suggests it's on the right flight path. And while hardly exciting, it was still good to see revenue growth of 12% during that time. It seems to be growing nicely. In reality, this article only makes a short study of the company's growth data. This graph of historic earnings and revenue shows how Aware is building its business over time.

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

There's no doubt Aware 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. Issuing new shares, or taking on debt, are the most common ways for a listed company to raise more money for its business. Many companies end up issuing new shares to fund future 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).

Aware has a market capitalisation of US$32m and burnt through US$2.3m last year, which is 7.3% 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.