There's no doubt that money can be made by owning shares of unprofitable businesses. For example, although software-as-a-service business Salesforce.com lost money for years while it grew recurring revenue, if you held shares since 2005, you'd have done very well indeed. 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.

Given this risk, we thought we'd take a look at whether Kelso Technologies (TSE:KLS) shareholders should be worried about its 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). First, we'll determine its cash runway by comparing its cash burn with its cash reserves.

View our latest analysis for Kelso Technologies

Does Kelso Technologies Have A Long Cash Runway?

A company's cash runway is calculated by dividing its cash hoard by its cash burn. In December 2021, Kelso Technologies had US$3.4m in cash, and was debt-free. In the last year, its cash burn was US$2.3m. So it had a cash runway of approximately 18 months from December 2021. That's not too bad, but it's fair to say the end of the cash runway is in sight, unless cash burn reduces drastically. You can see how its cash balance has changed over time in the image below.

How Well Is Kelso Technologies Growing?

It was fairly positive to see that Kelso Technologies reduced its cash burn by 31% during the last year. But the revenue dip of 33% in the same period was a bit concerning. In light of the data above, we're fairly sanguine about the business growth trajectory. In reality, this article only makes a short study of the company's growth data. This graph of historic earnings and revenue shows how Kelso Technologies is building its business over time.

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

Kelso Technologies 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).