Companies Like Champions Oncology (NASDAQ:CSBR) Can Afford To Invest In Growth
Even when a business is losing money, it's possible for shareholders to make money if they buy a good business at the right price. 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. 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 Champions Oncology (NASDAQ:CSBR) 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'.
View our latest analysis for Champions Oncology
Does Champions Oncology 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 January 2020, Champions Oncology had US$3.3m in cash, and was debt-free. In the last year, its cash burn was US$222k. So it had a very long cash runway of many years from January 2020. Even though this is but one measure of the company's cash burn, the thought of such a long cash runway warms our bellies in a comforting way. Depicted below, you can see how its cash holdings have changed over time.
Is Champions Oncology's Revenue Growing?
We're hesitant to extrapolate on the recent trend to assess its cash burn, because Champions Oncology actually had positive free cash flow last year, so operating revenue growth is probably our best bet to measure, right now. It's nice to see that operating revenue was up 28% in the last year. Clearly, however, the crucial factor is whether the company will grow its business going forward. So you might want to take a peek at how much the company is expected to grow in the next few years.
How Easily Can Champions Oncology Raise Cash?
Notwithstanding Champions Oncology's revenue growth, it is still important to consider how it could raise more money, if it needs to. 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 to 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.
Champions Oncology's cash burn of US$222k is about 0.3% of its US$79m market capitalisation. 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.
How Risky Is Champions Oncology's Cash Burn Situation?
As you can probably tell by now, we're not too worried about Champions Oncology's cash burn. For example, we think its cash runway suggests that the company is on a good path. And even its revenue growth 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. Taking an in-depth view of risks, we've identified 3 warning signs for Champions Oncology that you should be aware of before investing.
Of course, you might find a fantastic investment by looking elsewhere. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies, and this list of stocks growth stocks (according to analyst forecasts)
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