Here's Why We're Not At All Concerned With Drone Delivery Canada's (CVE:FLT) Cash Burn Situation
There's no doubt that money can be made by owning shares of unprofitable businesses. By way of example, Drone Delivery Canada (CVE:FLT) has seen its share price rise 103% over the last year, delighting many shareholders. But while history lauds those rare successes, those that fail are often forgotten; who remembers Pets.com?
So notwithstanding the buoyant share price, we think it's well worth asking whether Drone Delivery Canada's cash burn is too risky. 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 Drone Delivery Canada
How Long Is Drone Delivery Canada's 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. When Drone Delivery Canada last reported its balance sheet in March 2021, it had zero debt and cash worth CA$35m. Looking at the last year, the company burnt through CA$12m. Therefore, from March 2021 it had 2.9 years of cash runway. Importantly, though, analysts think that Drone Delivery Canada will reach cashflow breakeven before then. If that happens, then the length of its cash runway, today, would become a moot point. The image below shows how its cash balance has been changing over the last few years.
How Is Drone Delivery Canada's Cash Burn Changing Over Time?
In our view, Drone Delivery Canada doesn't yet produce significant amounts of operating revenue, since it reported just CA$457k in the last twelve months. Therefore, for the purposes of this analysis we'll focus on how the cash burn is tracking. With cash burn dropping by 14% it seems management feel the company is spending enough to advance its business plans at an appropriate pace. 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.
Can Drone Delivery Canada Raise More Cash Easily?
While Drone Delivery Canada is showing a solid reduction in its cash burn, it's still worth considering how easily it could raise more cash, even just to fuel faster growth. Generally speaking, a listed business can raise new cash through issuing shares or taking on debt. 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).
Drone Delivery Canada's cash burn of CA$12m is about 4.4% of its CA$273m market capitalisation. 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.
Is Drone Delivery Canada's Cash Burn A Worry?
It may already be apparent to you that we're relatively comfortable with the way Drone Delivery Canada is burning through its cash. In particular, we think its cash runway stands out as evidence that the company is well on top of its spending. On this analysis its cash burn reduction was its weakest feature, but we are not concerned about it. It's clearly very positive to see that analysts are forecasting the company will break even fairly soon. Taking all the factors in this report into account, we're not at all worried about its cash burn, as the business appears well capitalized to spend as needs be. On another note, we conducted an in-depth investigation of the company, and identified 4 warning signs for Drone Delivery Canada (2 can't be ignored!) that you should be aware of before investing here.
Of course Drone Delivery Canada may not be the best stock to buy. So you may wish to see this free collection of companies boasting high return on equity, or this list of stocks that insiders are buying.
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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