We Think Honest Company (NASDAQ:HNST) Can Easily Afford To Drive Business Growth

There's no doubt that money can be made by owning shares of unprofitable businesses. 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. But while history lauds those rare successes, those that fail are often forgotten; who remembers Pets.com?

So, the natural question for Honest Company (NASDAQ:HNST) shareholders is whether they should be concerned by its rate of cash burn. For the purposes of this article, cash burn is the annual rate at which an unprofitable company spends cash to fund its growth; its negative free cash flow. First, we'll determine its cash runway by comparing its cash burn with its cash reserves.

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Does Honest Company Have A Long Cash Runway?

A cash runway is defined as the length of time it would take a company to run out of money if it kept spending at its current rate of cash burn. As at March 2025, Honest Company had cash of US$73m and no debt. Looking at the last year, the company burnt through US$2.2m. So it had a very long cash runway of many years from March 2025. While this is only one measure of its cash burn situation, it certainly gives us the impression that holders have nothing to worry about. Depicted below, you can see how its cash holdings have changed over time.

Check out our latest analysis for Honest Company

Is Honest Company's Revenue Growing?

Given that Honest Company actually had positive free cash flow last year, before burning cash this year, we'll focus on its operating revenue to get a measure of the business trajectory. Although it's hardly brilliant growth, it's good to see the company grew revenue by 12% in the last year. While the past is always worth studying, it is the future that matters most of all. For that reason, it makes a lot of sense to take a look at our analyst forecasts for the company.

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

While Honest Company is showing solid revenue growth, it's still worth considering how easily it could raise more cash, even just to fuel faster growth. Companies can raise capital through either debt or equity. Commonly, a business will sell new shares in itself to raise cash and drive 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.

Honest Company has a market capitalisation of US$500m and burnt through US$2.2m last year, which is 0.4% of the company's market value. So it could almost certainly just borrow a little to fund another year's growth, or else easily raise the cash by issuing a few shares.

So, Should We Worry About Honest Company's Cash Burn?

As you can probably tell by now, we're not too worried about Honest Company's cash burn. In particular, we think its cash runway stands out as evidence that the company is well on top of its spending. Its weak point is its revenue growth, but even that wasn't too bad! After considering a range of factors in this article, we're pretty relaxed about its cash burn, since the company seems to be in a good position to continue to fund its growth. An in-depth examination of risks revealed 1 warning sign for Honest Company that readers should think about before committing capital to this stock.

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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.