Grant Thornton partner Holly Stiles said it was fair to say the past nine months had been as tough as ever for juniors and there clearly continued to be significant stress in the sector.

The plight of juniors is nowhere near as well publicised in the main stream press, as the high profile recent woes of the major miners and their restructuring as a result of sluggish commodity prices.

Global consultancy Grant Thornton takes a particular interest in junior explorers and miners, with Stiles focussing on ASX-listed companies with a market cap under $500 million, which as of May was about 700 companies.

She pointed out that the majority were hovering at the bottom end of that market cap range, with a not insignificant portion coming in under the $5 million mark, and they were all competing for the same limited capital for their projects.

"After several years of low investment and companies being starved of capital, we are starting to see a trend of mining projects staying private and running on a shoestring," Stiles said.

"If you are not going to be able to raise capital, you would be right to question the strategy of listing."

Stiles said there had also been a trend back to Australia for companies looking for projects, with the cost of looking overseas becoming prohibitive along with potential licence issues.

Whatever the make-up of the portfolio, juniors needed to be more focused in their strategy, Stiles said, with some companies diluting the message to shareholders with too broad of a focus when it came to commodity and geography.

She said Grant Thornton latest survey of 100 junior executives found funding restraints were still the main issue, with the result being management focused on fund raising, not creative strategy to add value for shareholders.

There was a boom in IPOs until 2011 when there were almost 100 resources related floats that accounted for about 70% of all IPO activity on the ASX.

This has reversed, with just five resources related junior IPOs this financial year to the end of May in a period where general IPO activity on the ASX has been quite strong.

The average amount raised in resources IPOs has also declined significantly. The average last year was a tick more than $3 million. This year, so far, the average is less than $3 million.

Australian Securities and Investment Commission figures suggest mining and related business insolvencies totalled 230 over the past four quarters.

Grant Thornton predicts that trend could worsen.