A business may be profitable (i.e. revenues greater than costs) but still have negative cash flow. Imagine I'm opening a chain of lemonade stands. I open a new stand each month, at a capital outlay of $3600. The stand will last me 3 years, so only $100 per month per stand shows up as a cost on my income statement. So, as long as each stand can make more than $100 per month per stand in operating profit (revenue, less cost of goods sold, less my staff etc.) from its first month onward, my business is profitable.

My business would be profitable even if I were to open 1000 lemonade stands next month. However, it doesn't mean I have the $3.6m required.

In short, IPO can be about funding growth. Profits can be a poor indicator of cash requirements if significant marketing costs or capital items (all of which cost real cash) are spread over time in the company's accounts. (The accounting treatment is useful, though, as it matches revenues to the costs which generated them, even if they were incurred much earlier.)