We Think Bluechiip (ASX:BCT) Can Easily Afford To Drive Business Growth

We can readily understand why investors are attracted to unprofitable companies. 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. Having said that, unprofitable companies are risky because they could potentially burn through all their cash and become distressed.

Given this risk, we thought we'd take a look at whether Bluechiip (ASX:BCT) 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). The first step is to compare its cash burn with its cash reserves, to give us its 'cash runway'.

See our latest analysis for Bluechiip

Does Bluechiip Have A Long Cash Runway?

You can calculate a company's cash runway by dividing the amount of cash it has by the rate at which it is spending that cash. In June 2021, Bluechiip had AU$5.9m in cash, and was debt-free. Importantly, its cash burn was AU$2.0m over the trailing twelve months. Therefore, from June 2021 it had 3.0 years of cash runway. That's decent, giving the company a couple years to develop its business. Depicted below, you can see how its cash holdings have changed over time.

How Is Bluechiip's Cash Burn Changing Over Time?

Whilst it's great to see that Bluechiip has already begun generating revenue from operations, last year it only produced AU$51k, so we don't think it is generating significant revenue, at this point. Therefore, for the purposes of this analysis we'll focus on how the cash burn is tracking. Notably, its cash burn was actually down by 58% in the last year, which is a real positive in terms of resilience, but uninspiring when it comes to investment for growth. Admittedly, we're a bit cautious of Bluechiip due to its lack of significant operating revenues. We prefer most of the stocks on this list of stocks that analysts expect to grow.

Can Bluechiip Raise More Cash Easily?

While we're comforted by the recent reduction evident from our analysis of Bluechiip's cash burn, it is still worth considering how easily the company could raise more funds, if it wanted to accelerate spending to drive growth. Issuing new shares, or taking on debt, are the most common ways for a listed company to raise more money for its business. 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).

Since it has a market capitalisation of AU$30m, Bluechiip's AU$2.0m in cash burn equates to about 6.7% of its 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.

How Risky Is Bluechiip's Cash Burn Situation?

As you can probably tell by now, we're not too worried about Bluechiip's cash burn. For example, we think its cash runway suggests that the company is on a good path. And even its cash burn relative to its market cap was very encouraging. After taking into account the various metrics mentioned in this report, we're pretty comfortable with how the company is spending its cash, as it seems on track to meet its needs over the medium term. Separately, we looked at different risks affecting the company and spotted 4 warning signs for Bluechiip (of which 2 are a bit unpleasant!) you should know about.

If you would prefer to check out another company with better fundamentals, then do not miss this free list of interesting companies, that have HIGH return on equity and low debt or this list of stocks which are all forecast to grow.

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.

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