Can PetVivo Holdings (NASDAQ:PETV) Afford To Invest In 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?

Given this risk, we thought we'd take a look at whether PetVivo Holdings (NASDAQ:PETV) shareholders should be worried about its cash burn. In this article, we define cash burn as its annual (negative) free cash flow, which is the amount of money a company spends each year to fund its growth. Let's start with an examination of the business' cash, relative to its cash burn.

View our latest analysis for PetVivo Holdings

Does PetVivo Holdings Have A Long 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. PetVivo Holdings has such a small amount of debt that we'll set it aside, and focus on the US$4.4m in cash it held at June 2022. Importantly, its cash burn was US$5.8m over the trailing twelve months. So it had a cash runway of approximately 9 months from June 2022. That's quite a short cash runway, indicating the company must either reduce its annual cash burn or replenish its cash. You can see how its cash balance has changed over time in the image below.

debt-equity-history-analysis

How Is PetVivo Holdings' Cash Burn Changing Over Time?

In our view, PetVivo Holdings doesn't yet produce significant amounts of operating revenue, since it reported just US$170k in the last twelve months. Therefore, for the purposes of this analysis we'll focus on how the cash burn is tracking. Remarkably, it actually increased its cash burn by 542% in the last year. Given that sharp increase in spending, the company's cash runway will shrink rapidly as it depletes its cash reserves. 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.

Can PetVivo Holdings Raise More Cash Easily?

Since its cash burn is moving in the wrong direction, PetVivo Holdings shareholders may wish to think ahead to when the company may need to raise more cash. Issuing new shares, or taking on debt, are the most common ways for a listed company to raise more money for its business. Many companies end up issuing new shares to fund future 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.

PetVivo Holdings' cash burn of US$5.8m is about 23% of its US$25m market capitalisation. 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 PetVivo Holdings' Cash Burn A Worry?

PetVivo Holdings is not in a great position when it comes to its cash burn situation. While its cash burn relative to its market cap wasn't too bad, its increasing cash burn does leave us rather nervous. After looking at that range of measures, we think shareholders should be extremely attentive to how the company is using its cash, as the cash burn makes us uncomfortable. On another note, PetVivo Holdings has 7 warning signs (and 3 which shouldn't be ignored) 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)

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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.

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