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 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 history lauds those rare successes, those that fail are often forgotten; who remembers Pets.com?

Given this risk, we thought we'd take a look at whether Aminex (LON:AEX) shareholders should be worried about its 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. The first step is to compare its cash burn with its cash reserves, to give us its 'cash runway'.

View our latest analysis for Aminex

When Might Aminex Run Out Of Money?

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 June 2023, Aminex had cash of US$5.0m and no debt. In the last year, its cash burn was US$1.7m. That means it had a cash runway of about 3.0 years as of June 2023. There's no doubt that this is a reassuringly long runway. The image below shows how its cash balance has been changing over the last few years.

How Hard Would It Be For Aminex To Raise More Cash For 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 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.

Aminex's cash burn of US$1.7m is about 2.7% of its US$62m market capitalisation. That means it could easily issue a few shares to fund more growth, and might well be in a position to borrow cheaply.

Is Aminex's Cash Burn A Worry?

Because Aminex is an early stage company, we don't have a great deal of data on which to form an opinion of its cash burn. Having said that, we can say that its cash runway was a real positive. Summing up, its cash burn doesn't bother us and we're excited to see what kind of growth it can achieve with its current cash hoard. On another note, Aminex has 3 warning signs (and 1 which doesn't sit too well with us) we think 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.

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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.