Expansion Capital Group Names Herk Christie Chief Operating Officer
June 28, 2019
Sioux Falls, SD — Expansion Capital Group ECG) today announced the appointment of Herk Christie from VP of Operations to Chief Operating Officer. Christie will oversee the company’s underwriting, IT, analytics, and merchant support and services departments. Christie, has been with ECG since March 2016 and has played a critical role in the growth of ECG and its many successes.
ECG, headquartered in Sioux Falls, SD, is a technology-enabled specialty lender that leverages data and analytics to offer customized solutions to small businesses.
Since inception, ECG has connected over 12,000 small businesses nationwide to approximately $350 million in capital. Christie’s appointment comes as ECG continues to see increased growth in its small business lending platform that utilizes technology, data, and analytics to drive user experience and increase access to capital. Christie will lead ECG’s internal operational infrastructure to meet the growing demand for its expanded services.
“ECG continues to put Sioux Falls on the map for financial technology innovation by creating products and solutions that have won the hearts and minds of our customers,” said Christie. “I am incredibly energized to help lead the company to its next phase of innovation and operational excellence as we expand product options to suit the evolving needs of small businesses across America.”
Vincent Ney, CEO of ECG, said, “Herk understands how to create a culture and environment where our hardworking employees have the opportunity to maximize their growth potential within a range of businesses opportunities. Herk’s leadership in our operational strategy has been a key driver in ECG’s growth and success.”
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About Expansion Capital Group
Expansion Capital Group (“ECG”) is headquartered in Sioux Falls, SD with an additional office in Wilmington, DE. ECG is a technology-enabled specialty lender that leverages data and analytics to offer customized solutions to small businesses. Since inception in 2013, ECG has provided approximately $350 million in working capital to small businesses throughout the United States. Continued investment in its lead referral partnerships, technology platform, people, and its proprietary risk-based analytics modeling platform has positioned ECG to increase its origination volume by approximately forty percent since 2018. This investment and growth has led ECG to be recently recognized as the 802nd Fastest Growing Private Company in America and the 2nd Fastest in South Dakota by Inc. 5000, as well as the Best FinTech to Work by SourceMedia.
For business inquiries, please contact newpartners@expansioncapitalgroup.com.
For job inquiries, please contact khillberg@expansioncapitalgroup.com.
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BFS Capital Surpasses $2 Billion in Financing
January 22, 2019
BFS Capital announced this morning that it has exceeded $2 billion in financing to over 22,000 small businesses across the United States, Canada and the UK.
“This is a major originations milestone,” said Mark Ruddock, CEO of BFS Capital. “We’re incredibly proud to see these investments take root, as BFS Capital continues to solidify its position as a central source for financing small businesses and their everyday capital needs.”
BFS Capital provides business loans and MCA deals from $5,000 to $500,000 to a wide variety of merchants. In 2018, fourth quarter originations were the highest ever in the company’s 17-year history. And third quarter originations also represented the best third quarter in the company’s history.
“In 2018 we enhanced our sales and marketing programs and made significant advances in our underwriting models so that we could better serve small businesses,” Ruddock said.
Ruddock also said that they are constantly thinking of ways to be better partners to the ISOs. He said that they plan to speed up the process from lead to loan by 30% this year, so that, with continued improvements in technology, approvals can take a matter of minutes and eventually happen instantaneously. Currently, they make decisions within a matter of hours.
“We’re also trying to communicate more clearly with [our ISO partners] about what sorts of merchants we are more likely to fund than not, so that they can be more efficient themselves,” Ruddock said.
Apart from accelerating speed in approval time for certain financing, Ruddock said that BFS also excels in serving customers that he calls “diamonds in the rough,” or businesses that sometimes even other alternative lenders will reject because they don’t understand them.
“BFS will very often be in a position to look at a company that perhaps might look complicated to others, and be able to say ‘Yes, this is a deal that we will do,’” Ruddock said.
This process is a little less automated as it requires more creative thinking on the part of their underwriting team, Ruddock said. Founded in 2002 and headquartered in Coral Springs, FL, BFS also has offices in New York, California and the UK.
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.
RDM Capital Funding Secures $7.5 Million Credit Facility from Charleston Capital
September 12, 2018Clifton, NJ – RDM Capital Funding, LLC, a technology enabled specialty finance company, announced that it has entered into a new $7.5 Million credit facility with Drift Credit Opportunities Fund, LP, an affiliate of Charleston Capital Management, LLC. This is the first institutional credit facility for RDM Capital Funding, which was launched in 2015 and focuses on financing for small businesses throughout the United States of America.
“This facility allows us to expand our ability to serve more small businesses and help them with their working capital needs. We are pleased to partner with Charleston Capital and take this major step toward our continued growth,” said Reuven Mirlis, Chief Executive Officer of RDM.
“RDM represents an attractive opportunity for Charleston Capital as they have quickly established themselves as a disciplined underwriter with substantial operating controls,” said McLean Wilson, the Chief Executive Officer of Charleston Capital, “We expect them to become a significant presence in the space over the next few years and look forward to their continued success.”
About RDM Capital Funding:
Founded in 2015, RDM Capital Funding is a technology enabled specialty finance company, which provides working capital to small businesses. The company provides small businesses easy-to-access capital, through a quick, efficient and transparent process. RDM is headquartered in Clifton, NJ and employs 11 personnel.
About Charleston Capital:
Charleston Capital Management is an alternative asset manager that seeks to generate attractive, absolute returns by opportunistically and tactically investing in areas where conventional sources of capital are disproportionately unavailable. Charleston Capital was formed to expand the spectrum of opportunities for investors seeking risk adjusted returns that are less correlated to other markets. Specifically, the firm seeks to exploit inefficiencies that are borne from transactions requiring significant amounts of intellectual as well as financial capital. The firm is headquartered in Charleston, South Carolina and is part of inFactor, a FinTech firm focused on liquidity solutions for businesses. The Drift Credit Opportunities Fund is a credit strategies fund focused on structured loans to FinTech enabled Non-Bank Financial Services companies, which underwrite loans to small and medium sized businesses in the United States of America.
Contacts:
RDM: info@rdmcapitalfunding.com (877) 667-4647
Charleston Capital: media@charlestoncm.com (843) 310-3528
Ascentium Capital Successfully Hosts CLFP Exam and Prepares for its Largest Sales Training Event
September 5, 2017September 5, 2017 KINGWOOD, TX – Ascentium Capital LLC, the top private independent finance company in the United States by new business volume, proudly hosted an Academy for Lease and Finance Professionals (ALFP) in Dover, New Hampshire.
The ALFP is an intensive three-day event designed to prepare individuals for the Certified Lease and Finance Professional (CLFP) exam. The CLFP designation is considered a preeminent credential throughout the world. This event resulted in seven new certified leasing professionals. “Ascentium Capital currently employs 17 CLFP-designated professionals and we are proud to support the industry and the advancement of financing professionals,” states Bob Fisher, CLFP and senior vice president of business development at Ascentium Capital.
Ascentium Capital also reached a new milestone and is holding its largest internal sales training program, Ascentium University this month. The Company will be on-boarding 10 new vendor focused sales representatives with course curriculum addressing business processes, marketing strategies, solution-based selling and the use of the award-winning technology platform. The mission is to lay the foundation for achievement and shorten the ramp-up period for a faster impact on growth. Richard Baccaro, chief sales and marketing officer at Ascentium Capital comments, “We are committed to the investment of our most powerful resource, our employees. Ascentium University enables us to attract top sales talent and to ensure they are set up to succeed.”
The Company’s growth continues in key industries including construction, healthcare, hospitality, technology and waste management. Due to this, recruitment efforts cover a national footprint. Ascentium Capital currently employs 105 sales representatives throughout the United States.
About Ascentium Capital
As a direct lender, Ascentium Capital LLC specializes in providing a broad range of financing, leasing and small business loans. The company’s offering benefits equipment manufacturers and distributors as well as direct to businesses nationwide. Ascentium Capital is backed by the strength of leading investment firm Warburg Pincus LLC. For more information, please visit
AscentiumCapital.com.
Media Contact
Monica Bruegl
SVP Marketing
Ascentium Capital LLC
MonicaBruegl@AscentiumCapital.com
What Shakeout? Breakout Capital Secures $25 Million Credit Facility
February 8, 2017
Put a tally up on the board for small business lenders in 2017. McClean, VA-based Breakout Capital, which just announced a move into a larger office last week, has also secured a $25 million credit facility with Drift Capital Partners. Drift is an alternative asset management company.
Breakout is young by today’s industry standards, founded only two years ago by former investment banker Carl Fairbank, who is the company’s CEO. And don’t count them out just because they’re not in New York or San Francisco. Washington DC’s Virginia suburbs have become somewhat of a hotspot for fintech lenders. OnDeck, Fundation, StreetShares and QuarterSpot all have offices there, Fairbank points out. “And Capital One is right up the street,” he adds while explaining that the community has a strong talent pool that is familiar with creative lending. Breakout has already grown to about 20 employees and they’re still growing, he says.
Fairbank considers Breakout to be a more upmarket lender, whose repertoire includes serving the near-prime, mid-prime customer. CAN Capital and Dealstruck had focused on this area and both companies stopped funding new business in 2016. As I point this out, I ask if that suggests that segment is perhaps too difficult to make work.
“Candidly, that’s the part of the market that I feel the best about,” he says matter of factly. The company tries to product-fit deals based on the borrower, and will even make monthly-payment based loans. “I think the subprime side with the stacking and the debt settlement companies is a very very difficult place to play right now,” he says, adding that they have worked with subprime borrowers using their original bridge program but that they’ve kind of pulled back from doing those. As with all programs regardless, their goal is to graduate merchants into better or less costly products later on. We have helped merchants move on to get SBA loans, he maintains.
That all sounds very hands on, and part of it is, Fairbank confirms while asserting that technology does indeed do a lot of the legwork. “There’s absolutely a human element to underwriting these deals,” he says. He also agrees with much of what RapidAdvance chairman Jeremy Brown wrote in a AltFinanceDaily op-ed titled, The New Normal. Both Breakout and RapidAdvance refer to themselves as technology-enabled lenders, an acknowledgement that tech is a component of the company, not the entire company itself.
“I think we will see the beginning of the demise of fully automated, no manual touch funding,” Brown wrote in his article.
Brown also predicted that the legal system will ultimately impose order on some industry practices like stacking or that a state like New York could take a public policy interest in products he believes have legal flaws. As he was writing that, Governor Cuomo’s office published a budget proposal that redefined what it means to make a loan in the state. And it leaves much to be desired, some sources contend. Two attorneys at Hudson Cook, LLP, for example, published an analysis that demonstrates how its wording is ambiguous and far-reaching.
“What they really need to do is take the time to think through the implications and basically do a full study of the market to ensure that what they’re pushing forward is going to have the desired consequences,” Breakout’s Fairbank offers on the matter.
This doesn’t mean he’s anti-regulation. The company already holds itself to high standards and customer suitability and is a founding member of the Coalition for Responsible Business Finance.
“I personally do believe that there’s bad forms of lending or cash advances in the market and I’m sure that’s what Cuomo thinks as well but at the same time, it’s getting pushed very quickly and they really really ought to step back and do the research to understand the broader implications and to understand what exactly they’re trying to accomplish,” he maintains.
His pragmatism extends to the OCC’s proposed limited fintech charter, which he finds intriguing, assuming it gets buttoned up. “I believe it’s a concept worth pursuing,” he says, explaining that regulators will need to get comfortable with unsecured lending.
In the meantime, he’s optimistic about Breakout’s prospects. “In a time when institutional appetite for alternative finance companies has dried up, we believe our ability to raise a credit facility in this market speaks volumes about what we have already accomplished, our position as a leading player in the space, and our prospects for strong, but measured, growth,” Fairbank is quoted as saying in a company announcement. The company was also invited and joined the Task Force for the PLUM Initiative, a collaboration between the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) and the Milken Institute to more effectively provide capital to minority-owned businesses throughout the United States. The Task Force consists of a very select group of industry leaders, who are in positions to improve access to capital in underserved markets, according to the announcement.
While other companies are making adjustments or in his opinion, continuing to make questionable underwriting decisions, Fairbank thinks his formula for success works. “I think that we do look at deals differently than most folks because I intentionally built the core of my underwriting team with folks who are not from this space so they take a more traditional approach and mix it with some of the greatest aspects of alternative finance.”
Strategic Funding Source Integrates U.S. Operations of Capify
January 4, 2017New York, NY – Strategic Funding Source, Inc., today announced that it has entered into an agreement to integrate the United States operations of Capify into its adaptive proprietary operating platform. Both Strategic Funding and Capify have been providing non-bank financing options to small and mid-size businesses for over a decade. This integration enables Strategic Funding to expand its US operations by marketing to and providing capital to existing Capify customers who will, upon renewal of existing merchant cash advances or business loans, become part of the Strategic Funding family of customers.
“We are very pleased to have put together a deal with Strategic Funding that will provide our customers a future source of important capital. As a company that shares our values of providing simple, transparent and responsible access to capital for small and mid-sized businesses, it was a logical transition,” said David Goldin, Founder and CEO of Capify.
As part of the transition, many of Capify’s New York-based employees will become part of the larger and growing family of employees at Strategic Funding. The transition also allows Capify’s existing U.S. clients and partners the opportunity to take advantage of a larger variety of financing options, while still benefitting from the same standards of transparency and integrity that they have come to expect from Capify.
“It is rare that two companies in the same industry can come together and craft a synergistic deal that serves the best interests and strategies of each – but this integration does just that,” stated, Andy Reiser, CEO of Strategic Funding. “We have been friends of David and Capify for many years and have collaborated on and co-invested in the financing of many businesses over the years. We share the same focus on technology and quality underwriting that our customers, partners and the financial industry have come to expect from us. This transaction only strengthens the relationship between the two organizations”
ABOUT STRATEGIC FUNDING
Founded in 2006 and headquartered in NYC, Strategic Funding has been recognized by customers and the industry as one of the most reliable and respected names in small business financing. With flexible financing options, we have provided over 35,000 small businesses with the working capital they needed to take advantage of opportunities and grow. To learn more, visit www.sfscapital.com
Knight Capital Funding Announces New Chief Data Scientist, Alex Kondratyev
December 11, 2016MIAMI, Dec. 9, 2016 /PRNewswire/ — Knight Capital Funding, a financial services company dedicated to delivering working capital to small and medium sized businesses in an efficient and transparent manner, announced the hiring of Alex Kondratyev as its Chief Data Scientist.
Kondratyev had been providing financial consulting to Knight Capital prior to accepting the role of Chief Data Scientist. He will be working out of Knight Capital’s new Silicon Valley office. Prior to joining Knight Capital, Kondratyev worked at Cadence Design Systems, a multinational electronic design automation software and engineering services company, as a senior software Architect. At Cadence he led and managed the scheduling group, which was responsible for a kernel of C-to-Silicon synthesis that involves about 20 man-years of development with more than 100,000 lines of C++ code.
“Alex will be integral to our data modeling in all aspects of our business. His expertise will play a critical role in our underwriting models, giving us the enhanced capabilities to mitigate potential fraud, while also increasing our approval ability to get working capital in the hands of small and medium sized businesses,” said Rich Ferrante, CFO at Knight Capital.
“I was intrigued by the rapid growth and unique technology platform at Knight Capital,” said Kondratyev. “I am very happy to have joined and to be a part of the largest funding and revenue months in the Company’s history, which gives us many data points to enhance the prediction power of our models.”
Kondratyev has been in software design his whole career with a specialization in complex algorithms. He began his career as a professor in Logic Design and Foundations of programming. He then joined Cadence Design Systems where he was a founder of C-to-Silicon synthesis group. Later he moved to Xilinx Inc. and worked as Principal engineer before joining Knight Capital. Kondratyev has a Master’s in Computer Science as well as a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the esteemed Saint Petersburg Electrotechnical University in Russia. He holds seven U.S. patents, more than 50 Russian patents, and is co-author of two monographs on asynchronous synthesis with more than 120 conference and journal publications.
About Knight Capital, LLC
Founded in 2013 and with offices in New York, Silicon Valley, Florida, India and Dominican Republic, Knight is a leading financial technology company that provides customized financing solutions to small and medium size businesses in the United States. Knight leverages its leading technology platform to provide solutions to small and medium sized business owners with greater speed and flexibility than in the marketplace. Visit www.knightcapitalfunding.com to learn more.
SOURCE Knight Capital Funding
