Is TNG (ASX:TNG) In A Good Position To Deliver On Growth Plans?

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. Having said that, unprofitable companies are risky because they could potentially burn through all their cash and become distressed.

So should TNG (ASX:TNG) shareholders be worried about its 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. We'll start by comparing its cash burn with its cash reserves in order to calculate its cash runway.

View our latest analysis for TNG

Does TNG Have A Long Cash Runway?

A company's cash runway is calculated by dividing its cash hoard by its cash burn. In December 2021, TNG had AU$17m in cash, and was debt-free. In the last year, its cash burn was AU$13m. That means it had a cash runway of around 15 months as of 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. Importantly, if we extrapolate recent cash burn trends, the cash runway would be a lot longer. Depicted below, you can see how its cash holdings have changed over time.

How Is TNG's Cash Burn Changing Over Time?

Although TNG reported revenue of AU$1.0k last year, it didn't actually have any revenue from operations. That means we consider it a pre-revenue business, and we will focus our growth analysis on cash burn, for now. As it happens, the company's cash burn reduced by 14% over the last year, which suggests that management are maintaining a fairly steady rate of business development, albeit with a slight decrease in spending. TNG makes us a little nervous due to its lack of substantial operating revenue. We prefer most of the stocks on this list of stocks that analysts expect to grow.

How Easily Can TNG Raise Cash?

Even though it has reduced its cash burn recently, shareholders should still consider how easy it would be for TNG to raise more cash in the future. Companies can raise capital through either debt or equity. 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 looking at a company's cash burn relative to its market capitalisation, we gain insight on how much shareholders would be diluted if the company needed to raise enough cash to cover another year's cash burn.

TNG has a market capitalisation of AU$76m and burnt through AU$13m last year, which is 18% of the company's market value. Given that situation, it's fair to say the company wouldn't have much trouble raising more cash for growth, but shareholders would be somewhat diluted.

How Risky Is TNG's Cash Burn Situation?

The good news is that in our view TNG's cash burn situation gives shareholders real reason for optimism. One the one hand we have its solid cash runway, while on the other it can also boast very strong cash burn reduction. Even though we don't think it has a problem with its cash burn, the analysis we've done in this article does suggest that shareholders should give some careful thought to the potential cost of raising more money in the future. Taking a deeper dive, we've spotted 4 warning signs for TNG you should be aware of, and 1 of them shouldn't be ignored.

Of course, you might find a fantastic investment by looking elsewhere. So take a peek at this free list of companies insiders are buying, and this list of stocks growth stocks (according to analyst forecasts)

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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.