There's no doubt that money can be made by owning shares of unprofitable businesses. 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 the successes are well known, investors should not ignore the very many unprofitable companies that simply burn through all their cash and collapse.
So should BIGG Digital Assets (CVE:BIGG) shareholders 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. We'll start by comparing its cash burn with its cash reserves in order to calculate its 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. As at March 2026, BIGG Digital Assets had cash of CA$5.8m and no debt. In the last year, its cash burn was CA$12m. So it had a cash runway of approximately 6 months from March 2026. 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.
Check out our latest analysis for BIGG Digital Assets
At first glance it's a bit worrying to see that BIGG Digital Assets actually boosted its cash burn by 9.3%, year on year. Also concerning, operating revenue was actually down by 16% in that time. Taken together, we think these growth metrics are a little worrying. In reality, this article only makes a short study of the company's growth data. You can take a look at how BIGG Digital Assets has developed its business over time by checking this visualization of its revenue and earnings history.
Since BIGG Digital Assets can't yet boast improving growth metrics, the market will likely be considering how it can raise more cash if need be. Companies can raise capital through either debt or equity. Commonly, a business will sell new shares in itself to raise cash and drive 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 CA$28m, BIGG Digital Assets' CA$12m in cash burn equates to about 41% of its market value. That's high expenditure relative to the value of the entire company, so if it does have to issue shares to fund more growth, that could end up really hurting shareholders returns (through significant dilution).
BIGG Digital Assets is not in a great position when it comes to its cash burn situation. Although we can understand if some shareholders find its increasing cash burn acceptable, we can't ignore the fact that we consider its cash runway to be downright troublesome. 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. Separately, we looked at different risks affecting the company and spotted 3 warning signs for BIGG Digital Assets (of which 2 shouldn't be ignored!) 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.