Is Energous (NASDAQ:WATT) In A Good Position To Deliver On Growth Plans?

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.

So should Energous (NASDAQ:WATT) shareholders be worried about its cash burn? In this report, we will consider the company's annual negative free cash flow, henceforth referring to it as the 'cash burn'. The first step is to compare its cash burn with its cash reserves, to give us its 'cash runway'.

Check out our latest analysis for Energous

How Long Is Energous' Cash Runway?

A company's cash runway is the amount of time it would take to burn through its cash reserves at its current cash burn rate. When Energous last reported its balance sheet in June 2020, it had zero debt and cash worth US$23m. Looking at the last year, the company burnt through US$25m. That means it had a cash runway of around 11 months as of June 2020. That's quite a short cash runway, indicating the company must either reduce its annual cash burn or replenish its cash. The image below shows how its cash balance has been changing over the last few years.

How Is Energous' Cash Burn Changing Over Time?

In our view, Energous doesn't yet produce significant amounts of operating revenue, since it reported just US$262k in the last twelve months. Therefore, for the purposes of this analysis we'll focus on how the cash burn is tracking. Given the length of the cash runway, we'd interpret the 21% reduction in cash burn, in twelve months, as prudent if not necessary for capital preservation. Clearly, however, the crucial factor is whether the company will grow its business going forward. 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 Energous To Raise More Cash For Growth?

Even though it has reduced its cash burn recently, shareholders should still consider how easy it would be for Energous to raise more cash in the future. Issuing new shares, or taking on debt, are the most common ways for a listed company to raise more money for its business. One of the main advantages held by publicly listed companies is that they can sell shares to investors to raise cash and fund growth. We can compare a company's cash burn to its market capitalisation to get a sense for how many new shares a company would have to issue to fund one year's operations.

Since it has a market capitalisation of US$127m, Energous' US$25m in cash burn equates to about 20% of its market value. That's fairly notable cash burn, so if the company had to sell shares to cover the cost of another year's operations, shareholders would suffer some costly dilution.

Is Energous' Cash Burn A Worry?

On this analysis of Energous' cash burn, we think its cash burn reduction was reassuring, while its cash runway has us a bit worried. Summing up, we think the Energous' cash burn is a risk, based on the factors we mentioned in this article. On another note, Energous has 5 warning signs (and 3 which are a bit unpleasant) we think you should know about.

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)

This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. 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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