Bizfi Secures $65m in Debt Capital

Bizfi has secured $65m in debt funding, with plans to ramp up its small business lending activities.

Formerly known as Merchant Cash and Capital, the recently rebranded Bizfi sits in the middle of a variety of small business funding solutions. Lenders such as OnDeck, Funding Circle and Kabbage are all plugged into the machine. Prospective borrowers may access multiple funding offers via the Bizfi platform – in theory driving down their cost of finance. Bizfi recently rolled out a range of white labeling and API facilities, allowing companies that service large SME communities to allow those businesses to gain swift access to capital.

Bizfi has now secured a $65m structured financing facility, courtesy of Metropolitan Equity Partners. The intention of the deal is to expand the platform’s suite of funding programs, to increase the speed with which businesses may access finance, and to drive marketing and brand awareness. The foremost of these plans stands out as perhaps the most interesting. Bizfi is both an aggregator of alternative lending solutions, and a lender in itself – which presents an intriguing internal dynamic. Bizfi’s aggregation platform went live in October this year, but the Merchant Cash and Capital brand has been around since 2005. 

One might imagine that rival online lenders would be unwilling to play in such a marketplace, but that doesn’t appear to have been the case so far. Since launching the aggregation platform, Bizfi has seen a 72% uptick in year-on-year gross originations – which we must assume is thanks at least in part to the contributions of the 45 independent lenders that are now making use of the platform.

The $65m commitment is in fact an extension of Metropolitan’s prior involvement as a purchaser of loan parts via the platform, and as a mezzanine lender to the Bizfi company itself. Stephen Sheinbaum, Founder of Bizfi, commented:

“The Bizfi platform is the simplest, fastest and most frictionless process for small businesses to access funding. Metropolitan’s financing will propel our growth plans to the next stage.”

“Every day more and more businesses are turning to Bizfi because of our strong channel partners, enabling business owners to compare all their funding options in one place. The Metropolitan partnership provides Bizfi with additional capital to develop new products and fund more small businesses from its own branded product set.”