Lightspeed’s MCA Business is Growing
February 2, 2023Lightspeed Commerce, a global e-commerce platform for merchants, reported an increase in its merchant cash advance business in its latest earnings report. As of December 31, 2022, $15.8M of mcas were outstanding, up 25% from the previous quarter, the company announced.
Lightspeed is no small company. It reported $188.7M in total revenues for the most recent fiscal quarter, $74.5M of which was drawn from subscriptions and $107.2M from transactions.
“To further complement our core cloud solutions, we offer a merchant cash advance program called Lightspeed Capital,” the company said in its quarterly statements. “This program provides cash advances to eligible merchants and is designed to help them with overall business growth and cash management.”
Just Jump In: Three Women Making Their Mark in The Industry
November 29, 2022Forty-Six percent of women make up the workforce in the financial services industry with only 6% of them being CEOs. Reshaping the narrative of men dominating the finance world, women in various components of the industry are making their mark. Sarah Kelly, Lindsey Rohan, and Heather Francis are three women that particularly stand out in the commercial finance industry.
Equipped at Birth
Born into equipment finance, Sarah Kelly got her start by working for the family business at KLC Financial. After a decade of becoming an expert in the trade, she spent some time in the medical equipment finance side of the industry before finally landing at Dedicated Financial GBC, where she is now the Director of Servicing. Dedicated has been experiencing growth, according to Kelly, as the company just hired five new employees in the last couple of weeks.
“I have a lot of confidence in the leadership team and was excited that they were open to having a woman on the team,” said Kelly. “They’ve welcomed me in wholeheartedly, they always ask for my opinion, I’m always willing to give it and I feel like we’ve really all connected to make Dedicated a great company.”
Kelly believes that women should support one another to do better. Even a little friendly competition to push each other to be their best selves doesn’t hurt.
“I believe that we can really show other women that you can be whatever you want to be in this industry, that there’s no limit, there really aren’t,” said Kelly. “I feel like some people think that there might be just because they are a woman but there really is no limit and we just need to get that word out there to them…”
Practicing the Laws of Finance
Finance wasn’t exactly the plan for Lindsey Rohan after law school. Working for a law firm in Long Island she dabbled in real estate closings, but with having two small children at the time, balancing work and motherhood were always at odds. Determined to have her own practice, she started Pollack Cooper & Fisher, P.C. where she worked as a real estate attorney for 8 years. She hadn’t ever foreseen commercial finance as her next career path, but a call from a family friend led her to join a merchant cash advance company.
“It actually became quite a good fit because it’s a lot of multitasking, a lot of looking at all the various aspects of a corporation and its life, and how you can protect it,” said Rohan, Deputy General Counsel at Basepoint Capital.
Handling the legal infrastructure of the company, building out departments to make sure there are checks and balances, and making sure all the collections teams abide by the regulations are routine in Rohan’s schedule. Having much success in her position, a notable point in her career has been about building the Alternative Finance Bar Association. The AFBA was created to facilitate the exchange of information with attorney members concerning alternative finance.
“What’s interesting about this is that while the industry itself is male dominated, most of the dominant attorneys in the space are women,” said Rohan. “Some of the largest originators, the General Counsel are women. The leading compliance and regulatory firm, the two attorneys that lead the group that handle commercial business are both women. And that’s an interesting dynamic.”
Working in a predominately male-led industry can have its challenges but Rohan claimed she never found it to be anything that’s held her back. Acknowledging at conferences that only about 10% of attendees are women while the rest are men, she does not believe it has had a negative impact on growth. Rohan agrees it’s important to support women in every endeavor and to not shy away from positions in this industry.
“Just do it, just jump in,” said Rohan. “Don’t hesitate, you’re in control. The amount that you learn is the amount that you allow yourself to be exposed to.”
Funding with Francis
Graduating with a degree in Health Promotion and Education, Heather Francis took a left turn into finance. Working for a private equity firm, she managed portfolios as well as oversaw many others. That position became her crash course into the industry, fueling her relationship into the financial services world and eventually encouraging her to start her own company in 2015, Elevate Funding. As CEO and Founder, Francis has had to do it all.
“I think owning my own business is accomplishment in itself, as well as being a mom and a wife,” said Francis.
Without dwelling on the industry being predominately male, Francis believes it has opened many doors for her. The women in the field are a “close knit group” propping each other up and sharing information, she explained. She believes it is important to support everyone that demonstrates drive and attitude to better themselves. That can be providing pathways, being a soundboard, introducing people, and simply giving out words of confirmation.
“I’ve always seen that the boys have a club, so do the girls, it’s never been anything that’s been a worry to me, or I’ve been like, ‘I’m being held back because of being a woman in finance,’” said Francis.
As a Board member of the SBFA, Francis helps solve problems in the industry and contributes ideas. And with rapid change surrounding the business, she has a hopeful disposition on where it’s heading as we enter a new economic phase. Experiencing the recession back in 09’, Francis saw the industry grow exponentially between 2009 and 2011.
“Traditional finance pulls back when times are hard, and we’re able to be a little bit more nimble and move around to adjust for it, but still keep funding,” said Francis.
Bonded through finance, women are navigating throughout the industry with strong personalities, outspoken voices, and confidence. Born into the field or pivoting their way in, they seem to be embedded into every aspect. While being a team player to everyone, these women continue to push their career forward with hard work, sticking to core values, and knowing who they are.
Your Default Rate Is Too Low, And It’s Hurting You
November 22, 2022
There may be no word as terrifying to stakeholders in the merchant cash advance business than the term ‘defaults’.
In an industry where a significant portion of revenue is generated from daily or weekly automatic withdrawals from a merchant’s bank account, defaults can cause deep and lasting problems. Not only do they eat into profits, but they damage relationships with banks and processors- both of which are essential to the success of any merchant cash advance company. Defaults can also be contagious: if one merchant in a large portfolio decides to stop making payments, it can have a ripple effect that leads to other merchants doing the same thing.
All these are reasons why MCA companies go to great lengths to avoid defaults at all costs: they exhaustively screen merchants before approving them for funding and do all the due diligence needed to ensure they can follow realistic payment plans. They also attach a fee to every deal to cover the percentage of the deal they expect will not come back, and conventional thinking would be to aim to keep that number as low as possible.
That’s a lot of work to keep that default rate low, but what would you think if I were to contend your default rate is too low, and it’s hurting your bottom line?
Fear of defaults is paralyzing MCA funders and inevitably leading them to leave opportunities-and money- on the table.
Better Accounting Solutions has been the leading accounting firm in the MCA space for over a decade, and has seen this across the board:
Many MCA companies have adopted a risk-averse approach to avoid defaults, opting for sure-fire deals in higher positions, rather than taking calculated risks that could enhance their bottom line. In the name of capitalizing on low-risk deals with a lower chance of default, many companies choose to fund deals where they charge smaller fees than what they could be charging if they choose to fund deals others are wary of taking.
Let’s look at two deal examples for an example of my thesis:
Average Andrew is the perfect merchant for an MCA company. He is getting a $100,000 advance with a deal length of 7 months (140 days) and with his rock-solid history, his default rate is a meager 6%. The RTR on the deal is 44%, the UR fee is 7%, broker’s commission is 10%, meaning the profit on this deal will be $35,500- a net unit profit percentage of 35%, profiting $5000 a month. He is a great client, and a pleasure to work with.
Now let’s examine his buddy, Reformed Ricky. He’s made some mistakes in the past and now wants a business advance to grow the business he believes is The One. No one else wants to touch him, so you offer him a deal of $35,000. Because he is a riskier advance proposition, you can raise the RTR to 49%, and the UR fee to 12%. On a deal like this, the commission is around 14% and the default rate will be a whopping 18% on a merchant like this, but the profit to be made on this deal is $10,150- a 29% net unit profit, getting $3,383.33 monthly profit over the length of the deal.
Now, looking at the structures of both deals, why would I advocate that someone advancing Reformed Ricky instead of Average Andy? What’s the advantage of working with the weaker merchant over the perfect one?
It’s simple:
Because of his history, you can set the duration of Reformed Ricky’s deal to 60 days (3 months). That means according to the terms of his deal, your profit is 9.67% a month. You’ll be stunned to learn that when you break down your monthly profit on Average Andy’s deal, it is a considerably smaller percentage of 5.00%!
This means every month you’re making more back on the smaller deal, and are getting it to work for you by placing it into new deals and generating more income for you, because of its shorter term. If you’re only taking deals with longer outstanding balances, it will take you a considerably longer amount of time just to make a smaller profit percentage.
On top of this, we also have to account for the compounding effect you will quickly be seeing when you take these ‘riskier deals: because you’re earning more money per month due to the shortened duration of supposedly weaker deals, you will be able to turn it around more times per year, supercharging your growth quicker than what you’d be seeing you stuck to only ‘traditionally-safe’ deals.
I’m not advocating for funders and brokers to be irresponsible and create a new and much less entertaining version of The Big Short, throwing money around to people that don’t stand a chance of paying it back.
I am saying that they should consider funding merchants and positions they were wary of till now, and responsibly assessing the opportunities and upside for them at those positions.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that you should mindlessly funnel money into every deal that comes your way. You still need to be responsible and vet your investment opportunities carefully, and of course, if it turns out you’re picking the wrong deals and your default rate explodes, you will have to reevaluate your approach.
However, working from a place of fear is not the way to grow and thrive, certainly in this business. Moreover, by avoiding risk altogether, MCA companies are likely to become less competitive over time. After all, it’s only through taking risks and innovating that businesses can thrive in today’s rapidly changing world, especially in the rapidly evolving and growing MCA industry, where more and more people are seeking to find their niche.
A great number of successful investors in MCA companies have complained to me that their partners are too conservative with the deals they are choosing to fund and leaving too much capital in the bank, costing the investors higher facor rates instead of working for them.
This approach is a way to break away, and ahead, of the pack, because only by taking the opportunities others keep passing by will MCA companies be able to grow and compete in the long run.
Shopify Funds $507.6M in Q3, Expands MCAs and Loans to Australia
October 27, 2022Shopify Capital originated $507.6M in merchant cash advances and loans in Q3, up from $416.4M in Q2. The increase was assisted in part by the company’s expansion into Australia, bringing the total countries that Shopify funds in to four (US, UK, Canada, AUS).
Shopify is the largest e-commerce platform after Amazon but the two companies are in the same ballpark when it comes to lending originations, and Shopify is potentially doing more.
Shopify generated total revenue of $1.4B in Q3.
“In Q3, we delivered another solid quarter of GMV, revenue, and gross profit dollar growth against the high inflationary environment,” said Amy Shapero, Shopify’s CFO. “From an operational perspective, we recalibrated our organizational structure, successfully rolled out a new compensation framework, and began integrating Deliverr into Shopify. Looking ahead, the flexibility of our platform, breadth of solutions, pace of innovation, and disciplined investment approach position Shopify well to realize the enormous opportunity ahead.”
They Grew Tremendously Through the Pandemic and Landed on the List
September 26, 2022
Inc recently dropped the latest annual list of the fastest growing small businesses in the country. These 5,000 businesses span across a range of industries including health, financial, IT services and more. Companies such as Fundomate, Fountainhead, and Business Lending Blueprint have been featured on this year’s list due to incredible growth.
For Sam Schapiro, the grit to grow Fundomate through a pandemic stemmed from a realization he came to years earlier.
“I think one of the best lessons I learned when I launched Fundomate, I was in Las Vegas at a conference to raise money,” Schapiro said. “…and barely anybody looked at us and I literally left with nothing.”
Full of doubt, Schapiro had lunch with someone he respected that had built several successful startups. That mentor told him that despite what he thought, 99.9% of the people pitching their business at the show were going to fail regardless, even if they really wanted success.
“So if you don’t really really really want it, then don’t bother doing it, because your chances of success are so slim,” Schapiro was told. That hard dose of advice led Schapiro to first question how bad he wanted it and he realized he was fully committed to seeing it through.
“I always say that if I knew how long it would take us to get here and how hard it would be to be down this road, I’d never get on the road,” Schapiro said. “But that’s the thing about life in general. Anything worth having and anything worth doing requires consistency and determination. And over and over and over again. So if something’s not working, and you can obviously see it’s not working and it’s clear, you know, the job is to keep looking at it, and at the point where it becomes a clear message that it just doesn’t work, then you got to pivot.”
Fundomate is a white label funding and banking platform for wholesale processors and MCA funders to automate their funding in a scaled way. Schapiro says that success was due in part to their technology, which collects a true daily percentage of a business’s sales.
As the pandemic subsided “we didn’t have to get back on the phone with every merchant and say, ‘Hey, we want to increase our daily payment again’ because we’re not on daily payments, we’re on instant collections that are happening on a daily basis,” Schapiro explained. “As soon as their sales came back up and even grew to get through the 2021 boom, all the sudden collections happen faster.”
Meanwhile, for Chris Hurn, Founder and CEO of Fountainhead, he had to refocus his non-bank small business lending company into a PPP loan operation.
“Pivoting our business solely to do PPP loans over the last two years was a pretty challenging experience,” said Hurn. “And we did, we worked ridiculous hours. I mean I averaged about three to four hours of sleep a night for months at a time every day. So, you know, that was probably the biggest challenge we had.”
But the work paid off. Hurn said that they were one of the most active PPP lenders over the last two years, making approximately 300,000 loans.
“Obviously, that helped accelerate our growth,” said Hurn, “as well as many of our full time hires that we made during that time are still there. And we’re still growing now.”
The process is no walk in the park when it comes to being listed on the Inc 5000. Thousands of companies apply annually to be ranked on the list. It’s months of lengthy paperwork and long-waited verifications. After realizing that one’s company has made the list, they find out their ranking along with the rest of the world.
“It’s a painstaking process because you can’t just apply and claim that you’re a growing company,” said Oz Konar, Founder at Business Lending Blueprint. “Your CPA needs to send them income verification or revenue verification, and all the things need to be documented and signed off on so they can actually prove that you’re a growing company, and you can make it on the Inc 5000.”
The hardest part of newfound success is maintaining it. With massive growth over the past four years, Konar believes growth happens when you have happy customers. Focusing on democratizing the lending space for new and existing brokers has drawn clients into his business.
“When you do things the right way consistently and stay laser focused on one problem, one solution, one product, that’s what brought us to the Inc 5000,” said Konar. “And to our surprise, we were hoping that we were going to be ranking about 1,000, the first 1,000 companies. We ranked in 799. So, it’s such an honor, we’re so happy, and we’re just getting started.”
In the competitive industry of finance that is always changing and rearranging, SMB finance companies may feel pressured to do all things for all people. But sometimes it may be more beneficial to stick to what one is good at. As Hurn can agree, it is much more complicated to compete in every marketplace.
“I think if you as a business, if you’re starting out, you need to definitely focus on a niche you want to attack and try to be the best at that,” said Hurn.
Who’s Growing in the Industry?
September 6, 2022Despite Covid, several small business finance companies successfully secured spots on the 2022 Inc 5000 list for their stellar 3-year revenue growth. Here’s a snapshot of who made it:
| Ranking | Company Name | 3 year growth % |
| 127 | Crestmont Capital | 3,548% |
| 271 | Fountainhead | 2,006% |
| 799 | Business Lending Blueprint | 793% |
| 835 | Clearco | 755% |
| 970 | Valiant Business Lending | 668% |
| 1,047 | Funding Forward | 618% |
| 1,240 | Lending Science DM | 524% |
| 1,587 | Lendio | 401% |
| 1,876 | Choice Merchant Solutions | 324% |
| 1,970 | Nav | 306% |
| 2,343 | Novae | 250% |
| 2,886 | Velocity Capital Group | 189% |
| 3,262 | Fundbox | 162% |
| 3,410 | SBG Funding | 154% |
| 4,284 | Flexibility Capital | 107% |
| 4,367 | Fund&Grow | 103% |
| 4,737 | ApplePie Capital | 89% |
| 4,959 | Fundomate | 82% |
The Inc 5000 list requires companies to apply and submit data. Companies that may have qualified to be ranked could have chosen not to apply.
Thoughts on Inflation, a Recession, and Regulation From Someone Who’s Seen ‘This Movie’ Before
July 7, 2022
“I can tell you that in the US that originators are starting to adjust their underwriting policies,” said David Goldin, CEO of Capify and Head of Originations at Lender Capital Partners, “I don’t know about pricing. I haven’t heard that yet.”
Goldin, who has been a small business finance chief executive for 20 years, believes that the economy, inflation, and interest rates are front-and-center issues that the industry should be thinking about right now. In the UK, one region that Capify operates in, Goldin said that several small business finance executives there are already talking about raising margin and doing shorter term deals to prepare for the increased risk.
“Some originators are smart enough to be proactive and others are saying, ‘oh we’ll just watch it.’ So it’s either going to take trickling down through the economy globally or defaults to go up for these adjustment to happen,” he said.
During the Great Recession of ’08/’09, Goldin was right in the thick of it as the CEO of AmeriMerchant, one of the first MCA companies in the US. He explained that there’s a notable difference between now versus then.
“One of the things that didn’t exist back then, someone doing a second [position] was like unheard of in 2008,” he said. “Now, what is it now? first, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th? 6, 7, 8, 9. It’s like a horse race. Ten horses in the race in some cases. […] You have to be careful, right? You have to make sure you’re covering your margin by charging enough and going shorter.”
But in a competitive environment where nobody wants to reveal their cards or risk losing business, not every funder is keen to start making changes right now. Goldin said that many funding companies will wait to see if their competitors start tightening up first especially if they’re driven by their ISOs and brokers. The downside of becoming more conservative is that brokers might just decide to take all of their business elsewhere.
But a looming recession isn’t all bad. “There are some positives,” he said. “The positives are the banks do tighten up. It’s just a question of when not if. So, you may get applicants that come to alternative financing that may have never taken or considered these types of products because they got bank financing.”
Complicating the landscape now, however, is that funding companies are wrangling with new state regulations. Goldin is aware of several originators that have temporarily paused business in Virginia, for example, where a disclosure requirement went into effect just last week. The soon-to-be implemented New York and California laws are also causing rumblings about funding suspensions respectively. In each of those states it was “sales-based financing” products that were specifically targeted, a trend that looks sure to continue as states like Maryland, Connecticut, and others are determined to reintroduce disclosure legislation next year.
“I think more and more originators will eventually get away from the MCA model,” Goldin said, “and go more towards the business loan model by partnering with a bank. I think you’re going to see more companies trying to implement bank programs to become full business loans and not deal with all the nuances of a state by state and MCA program.”
Goldin’s point of view, wisdom, and predictions are aggressively sobering. Only three months ago, industry sources were telling AltFinanceDaily that their outlook for 2022 was optimistic and that the end of covid-era government stimulus suggested that there would be growth for non-bank finance companies. Suddenly the tone has shifted, the stock market has plummeted, and interest rates are rising.
“I think if you resurveyed originators now, I think you’d get a different response than you did eight weeks ago or even four weeks ago,” Goldin said. “I can tell you right now that capital providers are asking their originators about how they’re making adjusments in this environment…”
Indeed, AltFinanceDaily did speak with several players just last week and did notice that the general sentiment had shifted to one of concern and caution.
“I think funders should be thinking about redundancy,” Goldin said. “More than ever the best time to raise capital is when you don’t need it. And I don’t know if [funding sources] will pull lines, yes if defaults go up, but they may not be as inclined to enter into new relationships in this environment.” Because of that, now might be the last best opportunity to secure additional credit sources even they’re not necessarily needed, he suggested.
With that, he said that funders should be thinking about tightening up the bottom of their credit profile, increasing their margins, doing shorter term deals, looking for more mature businesses, and working with businesses with higher credit scores.
“I think that those that don’t make credit adjustments, raise margin, and go shorter are going to have their you-know-what handed to them,” he said. “I’ve seen this movie too many times. It doesn’t have to be called a recession. […] It’s all about affordability to repay, and the more debt [the customers] have, and the more their margins are squeezed, or the more their sales go down. That’s when problems begin. You’re less likely to have a problem if you’re only out six months instead of eighteen months. I’ve used this saying a million times: ‘When the ships are too far out to sea and it’s a tidal wave, you can’t get them back.'”
Fundworks Completes $30.0 million Investment Grade Notes Offering
May 17, 2022VAN NUYS, CA. MAY 17, 2022: The Fundworks, LLC, a leading a tech-enabled small business finance company, announced today the closing of $30.0 million of Senior Secured Notes to a group of institutional investors. This transaction refinanced the Company’s existing $20.0 million of Senior Secured Notes and provides substantial excess capital to fund the continued growth of its small business funding platform.
“We are very pleased to announce this financing, which will allow us to continue our growth this year after record-setting funding volumes in 2021,“ said Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Evan Smiedt. “This additional capital positions The Fundworks to continue its mission to provide growth capital to small businesses nationwide.”
“Given current volatile markets, we are particularly pleased with the continued support of holders of our previous Note issuance, as well as the participation of new investors in the transaction,“ said Bradley Smiedt, Co-Founder and Chairman.
Brean Capital, LLC served as the Company’s Exclusive Financial Advisor and Placement Agent on the transaction.
About The Fundworks:
The Fundworks is a tech-enabled finance platform providing working capital solutions to merchants to grow their businesses, take advantage of short-term opportunities and fund seasonal business fluctuations. The Company’s proprietary technology platform makes the opaque, time-consuming process of obtaining capital simple, fast and reliable. Since inception, Fundworks has funded more than $425 million to over 8,100 small businesses throughout the United States. The Company is headquartered in Van Nuys, CA.
For more information, please visit: http://www.thefundworks.com
For more information/ questions/ interview requests / media inquiries, please contact:
Evan Smiedt
Email: info@thefundworks.com | Phone: (844) 644-FUND
