Methodology
Where the data comes from
DilutionLens tracks 1,825 ASX-listed companies, the whole board rather than a curated subset, and every company page is rebuilt each trading day from the disclosures lodged with the ASX. Cash runway is computed for every Appendix 4C / 5B filer; larger companies report half-yearly rather than quarterly, and their pages say so rather than guessing. The issuance timeline runs from January 2024 and deepens over time.
We analyse the public disclosures ASX-listed companies are required to lodge — Appendix filings, quarterly cash reports, raise announcements. We extract them into structured data the same business day they are released, and every fact on this site links to the source document on the ASX's document service, so you can check any number against the filing it came from.
| Signal | Source filings |
|---|---|
| Shares on issue | Appendix 2A (quotation of securities) — the count the company filed, quoted shares plus any ordinary shares still held under ASX escrow, used while it is the newest filing to restate the register; ASX market data otherwise, and whenever a later Appendix 3G or 3H restates the count (a buy-back or a consolidation makes a 2A total go out of date downwards). ASX market data sometimes leaves escrowed shares out, so our count can sit above the figure on the ASX page until the escrow lifts |
| Issuance timeline | Appendix 2A (quoted issues), 3G (unquoted issues), 3H (cancellations & buybacks) |
| Capital raises | Appendix 3B proposed issues + raise announcements (placements, SPPs, entitlement offers, convertible notes) |
| Options & warrants | Appendix 2A/3B/3G option schedules — exercise price, expiry, quantity |
| Cash runway | Quarterly Appendix 4C / 5B cashflow reports |
Share prices and market caps shown for context are delayed and indicative — they are not a live market-data feed. Filed disclosures, not price data, are the substance of this site. DilutionLens is not affiliated with or endorsed by ASX Limited; announcements are linked on the ASX's own document service rather than copied here.
The dilution risk level
Dilution risk summarizes what a company's own ASX disclosures say about the dilution facing its shareholders: cash runway (quarterly cash reports), how much the share count has actually grown, how often the company raises, outstanding options and rights that could convert to new shares, and any announced-but-unsettled share issues. It is computed by a fixed formula from disclosed facts — it is not a prediction, a rating agency opinion, or financial advice. Every input is linked to the source announcement. Levels update as new disclosures are filed.
Every rated company sits in one of five levels:
| Minimal | Funded, little overhang, no habit of raising |
| Low | Some overhang or occasional raising, not under pressure |
| Moderate | Real dilution factors present — worth reading the specifics |
| High | Several pressure signals stacking up |
| Very high | Heavy past dilution, thin funding and/or supply already on the table |
It measures one thing: what a company's own filings say about the dilution its existing shareholders have experienced and the dilution already on the table. It is not an assessment of the business, its management, its assets or its prospects, and a high risk level is not a statement that a company has done anything wrong — routinely raising equity is normal and often necessary for a company at this end of the market. Two companies at the same level can be in completely different shape.
Provisional levels. Where a company has enough filing history to rate but less than we would like — typically a recent listing, or a company relisted under a new ticker code whose record under the old code is not yet linked in — the company page shows the level with an asterisk and the label "provisional — limited history". The screener does not yet carry that marker, so a provisional level appears there as an ordinary one; check the company page before relying on one. Treat provisional levels as indicative and lean harder on the linked filings.
The exact weights and thresholds of the formula are proprietary; the component breakdown shown on each company page states which disclosed facts drove the level.
Not rated
When we cannot work out a level fairly, we publish Not rated with the reason rather than a shaky one. The reasons you will see:
| Suspended | The company's securities are suspended from quotation |
| Stale filings | No quarterly cash report lodged in over 12 months |
| Listed too recently | Not enough filing history yet to rate a new listing |
| Share-count series unreliable | A share consolidation or filing inconsistency means the share-count history cannot be reconciled |
| Options data unreliable after consolidation | Option and rights line counts cannot be reconciled after a share consolidation |
| Insufficient share-count history | Too few share-count observations on record to measure growth |
| Insufficient data / no reliable share count | The filings we need are missing or cannot be reconciled to a usable share base |
| Under review | Someone has questioned this level and we have suspended it while we check — see corrections below |
A not-rated company with its reason is itself information — it tells you which disclosures are missing or unreliable.
AI-written company descriptions
The short company write-ups on ticker pages are AI-generated summaries of the same disclosed data that produces the risk level — share issuance, raise activity, options overhang, and cash position. Every number in the prose is audited against the underlying source figures before publication; descriptions that fail that audit are withheld rather than shipped. They describe what the filings say — they are intelligence about disclosed data, never a recommendation or financial advice.
The model is run by a third-party provider (OpenAI, United States) and is given only the extracted financial figures for the company — no personal information and no reader data. The number audit is mechanical: it verifies that every figure in the prose traces back to the input data, not that the sentence around it reads the way we would have written it. Nobody reviews each write-up before publication. If one is wrong or reads unfairly, tell us and we will pull it.
Definitions
| Options & rights overhang | All outstanding options ÷ current ordinary shares. Each option or rights class is counted once, at the number stated in the most recent Appendix 2A that restated it; a class the latest filing reports as fully exercised counts as zero. An Appendix 2A lists every quoted class, so the numerator counts only what can become new ordinary shares: shares already on the register — including CDIs, stapled and partly paid lines, and shares held in escrow, under restriction, in deferred settlement or as treasury stock — listed debt and hybrids that do not convert, and rows whose description is the form’s own section heading are all left out. Adding up section 4.1 by hand will therefore give a larger figure than ours on companies that quote any of these |
| In-the-money supply | Options with exercise price below the last close ÷ current ordinary shares, over the same one-line-per-class counts |
| Cash cover | Quarters of current spend covered by cash on hand, per the latest quarterly report — the same quarter the operating cashflow beside it comes from. A company whose latest quarter shows no net operating burn has no cover figure to state, and is shown as cash-generative rather than given a runway |
| Share-count growth (24 months) | Latest Appendix 2A register total ÷ the register total 24 months earlier, both counting quoted shares plus ordinary shares held in escrow. Counting escrow matters: when a restricted block is released it moves from unquoted to quoted with no share issued, and measured on the quoted line alone that reads as dilution that never happened |
| Per-event dilution | Shares issued in an event ÷ shares on issue immediately before it |
Extraction is automated with human-level review models; residual errors are possible. Always verify against the linked source filing.
Corrections
Spotted a number that doesn't match the source filing, or a risk level built on wrong data? Email corrections@dilutionlens.com with the ticker and the filing you checked against. A person reads every report — none of this is auto-closed — and we correct confirmed errors. These are the targets we work to:
| Acknowledged | We aim to reply within 1 business day |
| Level held | Once we agree a level is questionable we mark it under review the same business day, and it shows as Not rated until resolved — we would rather show nothing than a number we are defending |
| Verdict | We aim to come back within 2 business days: confirmed, not confirmed, or still investigating with a reason |
| Fix published | Confirmed errors are usually corrected in the next daily rebuild; we aim to publish within 5 business days |
Business days are Sydney business days. These are service targets we hold ourselves to, not contractual guarantees — DilutionLens is a small operation, and a report that lands over a holiday period may take longer. Holding a disputed level is the part we treat as non-negotiable: if it is in doubt, it comes down.
Where a figure faithfully reflects what the company lodged and the filing itself is wrong or ambiguous, we will say so rather than silently overwrite it — the linked source document is always the authority.
Methodology and corrections process current as at 20 August 2026 (version 1.1). Requests about personal information go to privacy; legal notices are addressed in the terms of use.