Small Business Funders Court Florists Before Valentine’s Day
February 14, 2019
Earlier this month, LendingTree published results from a survey they conducted about consumer spending on Valentine’s Day.
The main takeaway is that men are planning to spend almost two and a half times more than what their significant others (of either gender) expect them to spend. So there might be some nice surprises today! On average, according to this survey, men plan to spend $95 today for their significant others, while women plan to spend $41. Also according to this survey, those who are engaged plan to spend $92 on their significant other, people in the dating stage of relationships plan to spend $88, and married people plan on spending $57. (The average for men is increased by spending based on generation.)
Regardless, Director of Personal Loans at LendingTree, Michael Funderburk, said that these amorous expenses are typically not large enough to show any spike in consumer borrowing. Small business borrowing, however, is a different story. As might be expected, there is a noticeable spike in borrowing from florists, among other small businesses that cater to the holiday.
Chad Otar, CEO of New York-based Excel Capital, a small business funder, said that they always fund more florists, chocolate shops and gift shops leading up to Valentine’s Day because these merchants need additional money to buy more inventory. Excel’s team of a little under 20 includes an in-house sales team that Otar said markets to these kinds of businesses in the weeks before Valentine’s Day.
The larger Reliant Funding, which has a sales team of about 100 people, makes an active marketing push before Valentine’s Day to reach more than 13,000 U.S. florists in its database, according to its Chief Marketing Officer Steve Kietz.
“Our business with these firms increases before Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day,” Kietz said. “We see lots of repeat business from those firms as they stock up for peak season. [And] we increase our mail and digital marketing activities to sync with when florists will be most responsive.”
Houston-based Accord Funding, doesn’t have an in-house sales team. Still, its CEO, Adam Beebe, said that while they don’t track submissions by merchant category, they do underwrite florists with seasonality in mind.
Shopify is Quickly Climbing the Ranks of the Largest Small Business Funders
February 12, 2019Shopify originated $277 million in merchant cash advances in 2018, according to their quarterly earnings reports. That figure already places them among the largest small business funding providers nationwide.
Below is a look of how they stack up thus far:
| Company Name | 2018 Originations | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | |
| OnDeck | $2,484,000,000 | $2,114,663,000 | $2,400,000,000 | $1,900,000,000 | $1,200,000,000 | |
| Kabbage | $2,000,000,000 | $1,500,000,000 | $1,220,000,000 | $900,000,000 | $350,000,000 | |
| Square Capital | $1,600,000,000 | $1,177,000,000 | $798,000,000 | $400,000,000 | $100,000,000 | |
| Funding Circle (USA only) | $500,000,000 | |||||
| BlueVine | $500,000,000* | $200,000,000* | ||||
| National Funding | $427,000,000 | $350,000,000 | $293,000,000 | |||
| Kapitus | $393,000,000 | $375,000,000 | $375,000,000 | $280,000,000 | ||
| BFS Capital | $300,000,000 | $300,000,000 | ||||
| RapidFinance | $260,000,000 | $280,000,000 | $195,000,000 | |||
| Credibly | $180,000,000 | $150,000,000 | $95,000,000 | $55,000,000 | ||
| Shopify | $277,100,000 | $140,000,000 | ||||
| Forward Financing | $125,000,000 | |||||
| IOU Financial | $91,300,000 | $107,600,000 | $146,400,000 | $100,000,000 | ||
| Yalber | $65,000,000 |
*Asterisks signify that the figure is the editor’s estimate
New Jersey MCA & Business Loan Disclosure Bill Update (S2262)
February 6, 2019
Bill S2262 in the New Jersey State Senate mandating disclosures on MCA and business loan contracts, was amended last week. In its current form, the bill, if it became law, would require MCA providers to disclose:
- the total dollar costs to be charged to a small business concern, assuming the small business concern delivers all purchased receivables to providers at the time they are generated or at a mutually agreed upon time, and all required fees and charges that are paid by the small business concern and that cannot be avoided by the small business concern;
- the amount financed, which shall mean the advance amount less any prepaid finance charges; and
- for a cash advance that calculates repayment costs dependent on the small business concern’s future receivables, the estimated annual percentage rate, provided as a range, with at least three different repayment times provided and a narrative explanation of how each rate was derived. Any estimated annual percentage rate is to be calculated using a projected sales volume that is based on the small business concern’s average historical sales or the sales projections relied on by the provider in underwriting the cash advance; or
- for a cash advance that calculates repayment costs as a fixed payment, the annual percentage rate, expressed as a nominal yearly rate, inclusive of any fees and finance charges.
Brokers would also be required to provide uniform fee disclosures to both the small business owner and lender or MCA funding provider in a document separate from the funding contract before a small business consummates a loan or MCA transaction.
Previously, the bill defined merchant cash advances as loans. The latest draft updated the definition to mean a financing option that allows a small business concern to sell all or a portion of its future sales collections or other future revenues in exchange for an immediate payment. It refers to this as an asset-based transaction.
You can follow the bill’s updates and read the latest drafts here.
S2262 was originally introduced 11 months ago in March 2018.
Funding Circle Partners with Stripe
January 23, 2019
Funding Circle announced this morning that it has joined the Stripe Partner Program, which will allow the company to provide financing to Stripe customers in the United States. Funding Circle is a small business loan funder that offers fully amortizing small business term loans. Their loans range from $25,000 to $500,000 and have terms between six months and five years.
“We’re excited to work with Stripe to connect even more business owners with the affordable capital they need to go further,” said Bernardo Martinez, U.S. Managing Director of Funding Circle. “Funding Circle and Stripe are both dedicated to helping companies scale their businesses in the digital age, ultimately creating jobs, opportunities, and driving growth in the broader economy.”
This is Funding Circle’s first integration partnership with a payments platform in the U.S. With the partnership, Funding Circle gets access to Stripe’s small business owners, but Stripe also wins by providing more services to its customers.
“We are enabling Stripe customers to finance their growth and the end result is that, as these companies grow, [Stripe] has a higher number of payments go through their system,” said Martinez.
No money will exchange hands between Funding Circle and Stripe, Martinez said. While this partnership will start with Stripe’s U.S. small business customers, Martinez said that Funding Circle is excited about the opportunity to scale with Stripe, which serves customers internationally.
Funding Circle is not the only small business lender that has partnered with Stripe. Another company called Bitbond, based in Berlin, is listed on the company’s Stripe Partner Program.
Founded 2010, Funding Circle is headquartered in London and has lent $8.6 billion to 62,000 businesses globally. Listed on the London Stock Exchange as FCH, the company employs about 1,000 people and has offices in San Francisco and Denver.
Why Strategic Funding Rebranded as Kapitus
January 15, 2019
Today, Strategic Funding announced the launch of a new brand identity, including a name change. Strategic Funding will now be called Kapitus.
“We had a name that was very well respected,” said Kapitus founder and CEO Andy Reiser. “Everybody loved our name, quite frankly. They loved it so much, they all copied it. You can’t trademark ‘Strategic Funding.’ It’s too generic.”
Kapitus, spelled this way, is not a word in any language, which makes it easier to trademark.
“We wanted to separate ourselves in a way that is clearly identifiable,” Reiser said. “It’s an easy one-word name [that] symbolizes stability and strength. It’s ‘capital from us,’ if you want to break it down.”
Reiser said that the company has been relatively quiet over the last three years, but they have been advancing all along, and they are particularly proud of their brand new ISO portal. According to Reiser, the new portal helps ISOs better understand their book at Kapitus and allows brokers to generate a contract quickly without having to call them. The company has an in-house marketing team, but well over 50% of its business comes from the ISO channel.
Kapitus provides a variety of financial products, including equipment financing (they have an in house equipment leasing division) and factoring (they have a small internal factoring group). They also offer business loans, lines of credit and MCA deals. But the company’s largest portion of its business – more than 15% – comes from its Helix Healthcare Financing product, which finances healthcare practitioners like doctors, dentists and veterinarians.
Unlike other funders of healthcare practitioners that may offer financing terms up to 18 months, Kapitus offers terms of up to 10 years as long as the merchant satisfies its requirements. The company also funds a considerable number of healthcare-related businesses, like medical equipment providers. Otherwise, Reiser said that Kapitus has a diversified mix of merchants, from restaurants to manufacturers.
Reiser said that about 15% of Kapitus’s business consists of deals above $150,000 for which they have a seperate team. They do deals as high as $750,000.
When operating under the Strategic Funding name, there was a payment servicing division of the company, called Colonial Servicing. That entity will remain, but will be woven into the new Kapitus name.
Founded in 2006, Kapitus employs 240 people divided among three offices. The headquarters is in New York and there is an office with about 30 people in Arlington, VA, and a Dallas-area office with about 35 people working in collections and customer service.
Strategic Funding Source Announces Launch of New Brand Identity; Unites its Funding Arm and Servicing Arm Under the name Kapitus
January 15, 2019New York, NY – January 15, 2019 – Strategic Funding Source, a veteran of the small and medium-sized business alternative lending space, today announced the launch of a new corporate brand identity, including a new name. As part of this rebrand, the funding division and servicing division will be united under the name Kapitus. The unification of these two divisions will allow for an improved experience for both clients and partners.
Since its inception in 2006, Strategic Funding Source has provided over $2 billion to almost 40,000 businesses in hundreds of industries across the U.S. Over the past two years, the organization has been proactively building out its executive team, bringing in a wealth of experience to transform its risk model, underwriting processes, lending capacity and product line, technology capabilities and customer experience.
With these and other planned advancements, the company required a new brand that better reflected the company’s commitment to be a reliable source of capital to all small and mid-sized business owners.
“The small business lending landscape is consolidating around a few strong and reputable companies. Over the last several years, Kapitus has experienced tremendous growth both in its product offerings to small and medium-sized businesses and in the total number of businesses it serves” said Andy Reiser, CEO of Kapitus. “We chose a name and identity that represents our strength and stability as well as our promise to be a responsible and fair source of capital to small and medium-sized businesses nationwide.”
Along with the name change there will be a new logo, tagline (“Let’s Grow Together”) and domain name (kapitus.com). The rebrand is the first step in the company’s strategy to grow its own financing product line, add to its marketplace of 3rd party lenders and create a foundation for new partnership opportunities. The new brand also represents the company’s commitment to keep the human touch throughout the financing process, while improving customer experience through technology to aid the decisioning process and improve speed to funding.
“This is an exciting change for us,” added Reiser. “This new branding builds upon our history and pays allegiance to our standing as a leader in a fast-evolving industry, opening the door for future opportunities for us, our clients and our partners.”
About Kapitus
Founded in 2006 and headquartered in NYC, Kapitus is one of the most reliable and respected names in small business financing. As both a direct lender and a marketplace built with a trusted network of lending partners, Kapitus is able to provide small businesses the financing they need, when and how it is needed. With one application business owners can save time and money, while eliminating the stress that comes with applying to different lenders. At Kapitus, we believe that business owners should be able to focus on running their business, while we take care of the financing. To learn more, visit www.kapitus.com.
Kabbage Finances US Small Business Customers of Alibaba
January 14, 2019
Kabbage announced today that it has partnered with Chinese e-commerce giant, Alibaba, to provide financing to small businesses that purchase materials on the platform. The financing program, offered by Alibaba and powered by Kabbage, is called Pay Later.
“Financing at the point of sale requires a fully automated solution that can handle the immense volume of daily transactions that occur on Alibaba.com,” said Kabbage CEO Rob Frohwein. “We are incredibly impressed with the service and value that Alibaba.com delivers to American businesses and want to do all we can to support their important mission.”
According to the Kabbage announcement, Kabbage had a beta launch of Pay Later in June 2018 and it has so far delivered millions of dollars in financing to American small business. The business to business (B2B) financing product provides lines of credit up to $150,000, and according to Kabbage, each purchase financed via Pay Later creates a six-month term loan for the merchant with rates as low as 1.25% per month. Kabbage also said that there are no fees to maintain the line of credit, no order transaction fees and no early repayment fees.
This partnership is not the first of its kind. In February 2015, Lending Club announced a similar arrangement with Alibaba that offered funding to U.S. small business owners for point-of-sale transactions on the platform. Lending Club offered loans up to $300,000 and had an exclusive relationship with Alibaba for point-of-sale business financing. Kabbage told AltFinanceDaily that their arrangement with Alibaba is not exclusive. Lending Club did not respond in time to explain their current relationship with Alibaba.
For Some Brokers, Funding Never Sleeps
January 4, 2019
While holidays, including New Year’s Eve, are usually slow days for funding, for some brokers this year, New Year’s Eve was a strong day.
“New Year’s Eve was not a slow day here,” said Elana Kemp, a broker at Fundomate, in Los Angeles, who was in the office that day. “It was amusing to see so many people looking for money on the last day of the year. I’m also a procrastinator, so I can relate,” she said.
Zach Ramirez, Founder and Managing Director of ZR Consulting, LLC in Orange County, CA, said that New Year’s Eve was the second biggest funding day for his company in December, despite the fact he told his brokers that it was an optional work day, he said.
At the same time, for many other brokers, business was on the slow side, as expected. John Celifarco of Horizon Financial Group in Brooklyn, said it was a good day to organize and prepare for the new year. Meanwhile, Joe Cohen, of Business Finance Advance in Brooklyn, said he generally doesn’t go to work on major holidays.
“The holidays are to enjoy, regenerate and spend time with the family,” Cohen said. “That’s why you’re working anyway.”
