Airborne Capital Closes Its Debut Investment-Grade Corporate Note Financing
August 21, 202421 August 2024 – Airborne Capital Limited (“Airborne Capital”), a leading global aircraft asset manager, announced the closing of a US$20.0 million investment-grade rated corporate note financing offered through its U.S. subsidiary Airborne Capital USA LLC. Proceeds from the transaction will be used to refinance existing debt and for growth capital.
Airborne Capital currently manages in excess of US$2 billion of aircraft assets for a wide variety of institutional investors and airlines across the globe.
“This new capital raise paves the way for further growth and allows us to continue expanding our asset management business. This financing reflects our strong commercial position, and better positions us to serve our clients in the increasingly evolving aviation space” said Hari Raghavan, Partner at Airborne Capital. “This transaction marks a significant milestone for Airborne. It represents the confidence that institutional investors have in Airborne Capital.”
Brean Capital, LLC served as Airborne Capital’s Exclusive Financial Advisor and Sole Placement Agent in connection with the transaction.
About Airborne Capital Limited
Airborne Capital is a specialist aircraft leasing and asset management business headquartered in Ireland and with a presence in Shannon, Dublin, London, New York, Hong Kong and Tokyo. Airborne Capital manages approximately US$2 billion of aircraft assets through active relationships with a global set of investors. Airborne Capital is substantially owned by the management of the group.
For additional information about Airborne Capital, visit: https://airborne.capital/
Contact:
Christopher Simmons – Portland Communications
Christopher.simmons@portland-communications.com
Fundfi Merchant Funding Expands Services to Canada, Paving the Way for Financial Growth and Innovation
July 11, 2024Fundfi Merchant Funding, a leading provider of innovative financial solutions in the United States, is excited to announce its expansion into the Canadian market. With a proven track record of empowering businesses to achieve their goals through strategic funding, Fundfi Canada Inc. is poised to bring its expertise and dedication to support Canadian enterprises.
The decision to expand into Canada comes at a time when businesses across North America are seeking reliable and flexible financial support to navigate economic landscapes and fuel growth opportunities.
By extending its services to Canadian businesses, Fundfi Canada Inc. aims to bridge the gap between financial needs and solutions, empowering entrepreneurs to thrive in today’s competitive market environment.
The expansion into Canada reflects Fundfi Merchant Funding’s ongoing commitment to innovation, growth, and client satisfaction. By leveraging its extensive experience and deep industry knowledge, Fundfi Canada Inc. aims to become a trusted partner for Canadian businesses seeking reliable and strategic financial support.
As Fundfi Merchant Funding embarks on this exciting new chapter, it invites Canadian businesses to explore the diverse range of financial solutions and opportunities available to them. Whether it’s funding for expansion, equipment upgrades, working capital, or other business needs, Fundfi Canada Inc. is dedicated to helping Canadian businesses thrive and succeed.
For more information about Fundfi Merchant Funding and its expansion into Canada, please visit www.FundfiMerchantFunding.com.
Shopify Capital MCA, Loan Origination Growth Appears to Slow Down
May 9, 2024Shopify Capital, the funding arm of Shopify that provides merchant cash advances and loans to merchants on its platform, experienced no increase in these related receivables in Q1 compared to Q4 2023. The company typically records significant growth in this figure each quarter. Shopify used to broadcast its origination figures far and wide in each quarterly earnings report and call but has since gotten shy about this segment of its business and no longer discloses originations. Instead, its balance sheet line item for “Loans and merchant cash advances” is virtually all there is to go by now and they were listed at $815M in Q1 vs $816M the prior quarter. This, of course, only reflects anything they’ve kept on balance sheet and could be a misleading indicator if those receivables are being sold off or taken on by a third party.
Shopify’s major rival, Amazon, never disclosed origination figures for its Amazon lending program, and in March announced that it was discontinuing its in-house lending program altogether after a 12-year run.
Shopify is still among the largest online small business lenders in the US.
Online SME lender Capify secures $125 million credit facility from Pollen Street Capital
April 29, 2024Leading online SME lender Capify has today secured a $125 million credit facility from Pollen Street Capital (“Pollen Street”), an alternative asset manager dedicated to investing within financial and business services.
The new facility will support the lender’s ambitious future growth plans and provide working capital to thousands of SMEs over the coming years.
Founded initially in the United States in 2002, Capify was one of the world’s first online alternative financing companies for SMEs. It was launched in the UK and Australia in 2008, against the backdrop of the global financial crisis, when many small and medium-sized businesses were struggling to access vital funding from banks. Last year it was named the UK Credit Awards SME Lender of the Year (up to £1m).
“We are extremely excited about our future relationship with Pollen Street, a capital provider with a proven track record of partnering with impactful and innovative businesses. This deal represents another significant milestone for Capify and underlines the strength of our business model in providing fast, flexible and responsible support to SMEs”, said David Goldin, Founder and CEO of Capify.
“We are absolutely delighted to secure this financing deal with Pollen Street” added John Rozenbroek, CFO/COO at Capify. “The credit facility will enable us to continue on our growth trajectory while offering even more attractive and innovative solutions to the growing number of small businesses in need of funding. We are passionate about the vital role SMEs play in the success of any economy . This new multi-year credit facility allows us to provide much-needed access to capital for SMEs to help them manage and prosper, whilst also enabling us to deliver on our own growth plans”.
“With continued investment in our platforms and customer experience, we will streamline our processes and provide even faster decisions to brokers and SMEs,” said Rozenbroek. “These enhancements underline our commitment to leveraging technology to meet the fast-evolving needs of small businesses, ensuring they have quick access to capital and can seize growth opportunities more effectively.”
“We are impressed by Capify’s seasoned management team and their enduring presence in the market. Since its inception in 2008, Capify has been at the forefront of online SME lending in both the UK and Australia, consistently demonstrating its commitment to the sector. Capify successfully addresses the needs of the underserved market segment, resulting from a chronic undersupply of bank financing, and promotes both financial inclusion as well as regional economic growth, aligning closely to Pollen Street Capital’s ESG framework. We are delighted to partner with Capify and support their ongoing growth” added Ethan Saggu, Investment Director at Pollen Street Capital.
About Capify
Capify is an online lender that provides flexible financing solutions to SMEs seeking working capital to sustain or grow their business. Originally started in the US over twenty years ago, the fintech businesses have been serving the SME market in the UK and Australia for over 15 years. In that time, it has provided finance to thousands of businesses, ensuring the vibrant and vital SME community can meet the challenges of today and the opportunities of tomorrow.
For more details about Capify, visit:
http://www.capify.co.uk
http://www.capify.com.au
About Pollen Street Capital
Pollen Street is a purpose led and high performing private capital asset manager. Established in 2013, the firm has built deep capability across the financial and business services sector aligned with mega-trends shaping the future of the industry. Pollen Street manages over £4.2bn AUM across private equity and credit strategies on behalf of investors including leading public and corporate pension funds, insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds, endowments and foundations, asset managers, banks, and family offices from around the world. Pollen Street has a team of over 80 professionals with offices in London and the US.
For more information, visit: www.pollenstreetgroup.com
Media enquiries
Capify
Ash Yazdani
Ash.yazdani@capify.co.uk
Pollen Street Capital
PollenStreetCapital-LON@fgsglobal.com
Don’t Just Say You Can Do SBA Loans, Learn How to Broker Them
April 6, 2024
“As in anything else, once you master the learning curve, you’re fine,” says Bob Coleman. “The reason why SBA lending is difficult is you may not know the rules.”
And that’s where Coleman comes in, a former lender turned news source and educator of SBA loan brokers, he offers his own online course called the Certified SBA Loan Broker Training, which is open to commercial loan brokers of various backgrounds that want to master SBA. Without training, brokers unaccustomed to the process can get lost and bogged down if they try to figure it out on the fly.
For instance, “If you drop something off at your lender, the lender is going to come back with 15 things and you may not know exactly what they want,” Coleman says, “and therefore the difficulty arises when you don’t know exactly what the lender wants and you ask the borrower and then it becomes a long drawn out affair.”
It’s precisely this scenario that scares brokers accustomed to light paperwork and perks like 2-hour approvals in the short-term working capital space from even attempting to try their hand at SBA. But even the merchants can be scared off by a longer more arduous process. Coleman also acknowledges that there has been a collective awakening throughout the mainstream commercial finance space that speed is on every business owner’s mind.
But speed can be a matter of experience and just knowing what to do, how to do it, and who to do it with. Besides, in an era of creeping one-stop-loan-shops that can do it all, it will become increasingly difficult for today’s broker to tell a customer that they don’t really know how to do the harder stuff and to always default to a short term loan or MCA when the broker next door is ready to put an SBA loan together if that’s the best course of action. As most brokers are aware, many short-term working capital brokers also offer equipment financing at the very least and vice-versa these days.
“A successful broker is one that cultivates a relationship with a few lenders,” Coleman says. “A broker is more entrepreneurial [versus an in-house business development officer], has access to a number of different products, and they work with a core level of lenders or funders.”
And that all comes down to training, which Coleman’s course offers for SBA.
“The loan broker course is geared for loan brokers who have a basic knowledge of commercial lending,” Coleman says. “We’re not going to go through and tell them how to analyze an income statement or a balance sheet, but we are going to tell them what SBA lenders are looking for.”
Coleman’s course is designed to take 12 weeks, though with it being online those enrolled can move at their own pace. As a benefit those taking the course get access to Coleman himself and can ask him questions and can join his weekly live show. There’s also the Coleman Roundtable where brokers and lenders dial in together once a week so that lenders can provide updates on what type of deals they’re looking for.
“It’s always a moving target of what the lenders will do,” Coleman says, “As we go through economic cycles, lenders tweak their credit boxes of what they want, and the brokers have to understand the lenders have a tremendous amount of pressure from a lot of stakeholders on how they want their portfolios to look.”
To that end, any broker that maybe tried their hand on an SBA loan in the past and walked away discouraged shouldn’t give up on it entirely.
“SBA is constantly changing,” Coleman says. “If you had a bad experience three or four years ago with a particular lender, forget about it and find out what’s new.”
Bob Coleman will be speaking alongside Sean Murray at Broker Fair New York City on May 20 if you’d like the opportunity to learn more from him and pick his brain in person.
Missing Funds in Prime Capital Ventures Case Now Exceed $90 Million
February 20, 2024
The case of the missing $50 million in the Prime Capital Ventures deposit scheme case is quickly ballooning to a much larger sum. On Tuesday, the Receiver representing Prime in the recovery efforts informed the Court that the total owed to victims is now almost $91 million and that it has yet to locate and secure anywhere near that amount. The growing number is attributed to the fact that more victim companies are beginning to come forward after news of the receivership and personal bankruptcy of Prime’s principal Kris Roglieri have been made public.
Roglieri’s attorney has asked the Court for the automatic stay of actions afforded to him in his personal bankruptcy be also applied to the other businesses he owns that the Receiver of Prime is suing, including the National Alliance of Commercial Loan Brokers entity. Roglieri is reportedly the 100% owner of the NACLB.
The party that sued Prime into receivership in the first place, a company named Compass-Charlotte 1031, LLC, said in its rebuttal to Roglieri’s request that not only is Prime indisputably insolvent but that there is no evidence that Roglieri’s other businesses at issue are not equally insolvent. Compass-Charlotte and the Receiver have both asked the Court not to extend the bankruptcy stay to these other businesses so that Prime can continue to pursue the assets.
Northteq’s Aurora Platform Powers ElmBlue Capital’s Equipment Finance Launch
February 12, 2024[MINNEAPOLIS, MN, February 12, 2024] – Northteq, LLC, a leading provider of Salesforce loan origination solutions, is thrilled to support the launch of ElmBlue Capital, an emerging lender in the equipment finance market. Co-founded by industry veterans Greg Bourdon, Paul Reny, and Jake Broom, ElmBlue Capital is leveraging Northteq’s Aurora platform to streamline operations and deliver an automated digital lending experience to its customers and vendors.
“We knew we wanted the power and flexibility of Salesforce, and Northteq’s Aurora platform was the perfect match to quickly operationalize our vision,” said Greg Bourdon, co-founder of ElmBlue Capital. “Aurora allowed us to select the features we need now while laying a solid foundation for our future operations to grow.”
The integration of Aurora is a central component of ElmBlue’s business strategy, providing the scalability and flexibility that is critical to compete in the rapidly evolving equipment finance industry. Aurora’s automation and seamless third-party integrations provide real-time data access for vendors, streamlining processes while enhancing transparency and speed in operations.
“We are placing an emphasis on providing resources and financial tools for our partners that expand beyond the scope of what currently exists in the equipment finance space today,” Paul Reny, co-founder of ElmBlue added. “Our focus on automating our workflows and leveraging technology from the onset will ensure our level of service remains consistently high, regardless of capacity or market conditions.”
ElmBlue’s strong operational foundation not only allows them to compete with industry veterans, but also sets them apart through key differentiators such as:
- Fully Automated: ElmBlue launched with Northteq’s out-of-the-box, fully automated loan origination platform, Aurora. This turnkey solution, designed for deployment in weeks, not months, takes deals to signed documents in minutes, streamlining front-end operations while ensuring compliance with industry standards.
- Agile and Future-ready: Aurora’s agile, open architecture and ability to seamlessly integrate with Salesforce AppExchange partners will enable ElmBlue to rapidly adapt to market and customer needs. This ensures that their business model is scalable and poised for future growth, keeping them at the forefront of industry advancements.
- Improved Vendor and Customer Relations: Aurora’s real-time data access and streamlined processes create an unparalleled user experience, helping ElmBlue build transparency and trust with its vendor partners and borrowers.
“Partnering with Northteq has been instrumental in actualizing our vision for ElmBlue,” Jake Broom, co-founder of ElmBlue noted. “Our strategic emphasis on establishing a scalable and efficient operation from inception has positioned us for sustained success in the long run.”
To learn more about ElmBlue Capital’s financing capabilities or to become a vendor partner, visit elmblue.com.
To learn more about the Aurora system and the automation tools Northteq used to support ElmBlue Capital’s business launch, visit northteq.com.
About Northteq
Northteq, LLC is a Minneapolis, Minnesota-based fintech company that has helped over 175 lenders provide their customers, vendors, and employees with intuitive, thoughtfully designed lending solutions. Aurora, Northteq’s flagship product, is an automated, Salesforce powered loan origination system and partner portal. They also offer turnkey Salesforce apps created through key partnerships with fintech industry leaders including Middesk, PayNet, FICO, Equifax, Experian, D&B, TimeValue, LexisNexis, Nintex, Ocrolus, Plaid, and many more.
Northteq is now primarily owned by Arthur Ventures, a respected Minneapolis-based early growth capital firm known for leading investments in B2B software companies. This partnership positions Northteq for continued growth and innovation. Since 2013, Arthur Ventures has partnered with over 50 companies across the United States and Canada. For more information, please visit northteq.com.
About ElmBlue Capital
ElmBlue Capital is a fintech-focused equipment financing lender. Committed to transparency, integrity, and partnership, ElmBlue Capital aims to build long-term relationships, supporting clients and vendors in the trucking and transportation, manufacturing, food processing, packaging, and construction industries. To learn more, visit: elmblue.com.
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Expansion Capital Group Announces $1 Billion Funding Milestone — Supporting the Expansion of U.S. Small Businesses
December 13, 2023
L-R: Herk Christie, Chief Operating Officer; Brittney Newell, Chief Financial Officer; Vincent Ney, Chief Executive Officer;
Tim Mages, Chief Strategy Officer; Mike Beattie, Chief Technology Officer
Photo Credit: Reistroffer Design
SIOUX FALLS, SOUTH DAKOTA—Expansion Capital Group, LLC (“ECG”) is pleased to announce its billionth dollar in funding, reinforcing its mission to support the “Expansion” of America’s Small Businesses with simple and efficient capital. Since inception in 2013, ECG has provided services to over 20,000 small businesses across multiple industries nationwide. ECG’s core solution, a six to 11 month working capital product, meets the needs of small business owners that are not in a position to wait for a traditional bank loan.
Tim Mages, Chief Strategy Officer of ECG said, “The ECG team is proud of its efforts to fulfill the capital needs of small business owners. Capital challenges have been magnified since COVID and the recent muted lending environment by regional and community banks. During the last three years, inflationary pressures have negatively impacted many hardworking small business owners. ECG has continued to be a reliable partner and a key resource as business owners navigate these headwinds.”
He continued, “In the last two years, we’ve seen accelerated growth of our platform. This growth is being driven by two key factors. First, our industry-leading Partner Portal is designed to create a transparent and seamless process for our referral partners. Second, investments in new technology and data sources have positioned ECG to provide underwritten approvals in less than an hour. These innovations would not have been possible without the trust of our valued customers and dedication of our 85+ team members.”
ECG’s Chief Operating Officer, Herk Christie, said, “Paramount to our success is the support from our referral partners. Since inception, we’ve also seen over one million applications from small business owners. Our financing alternatives provide business owners with more options and availability, so they can successfully execute their business objectives.”
As an on-balance sheet working capital provider, ECG is committed to providing customized solutions for small businesses. ECG works directly with small business owners and with hundreds of referral partners who are trying to meet their clients needs. ECG utilizes proprietary data, analytics, and systems to provide access and capital in a timely manner. Its robust underwriting models and flexible Partner Portal platform allows business owners to compare options and select a product that fits their needs.
Brittney Newell, ECG’s Chief Financial Officer added, “We hope to continue this growth in the coming years and appreciate the support of our long-time capital provider Bastion Management. As many market participants have tightened lending standards throughout 2023, ECG is committed to continuing to meet the increased demand for our services and offerings.”
PR Contact: tamara@tamaraedwards.co
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Expansion Capital Group is headquartered in Sioux Falls, SD and operates as a technology-driven specialty lender harnessing data and analytics to offer tailor-made solutions for small business enterprises. The company primarily serves small businesses across the United States with annual revenues of less than $10 million. For more information, please visit www.ecg.com and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Recent ECG News
Sioux Falls Business Journal: Fast but careful money: Sioux Falls firm offers new kind of capital
Inc. 5000: Financial services firm partnering with small business owners to provide working capital solutions with speed, simplicity and service.
