From Credit Scores to Cash Flow: Rethinking Small Business Funding

Access to capital is the lifeblood of any business. I usually get to the FundKite offices between 5:00 and 5:30 in the morning. Nobody’s around, so I can focus on what’s really important. That’s some of my best time. Welcome to FundKite, my home away from home.

Ten years ago in New York City, I was just another serial entrepreneur who understood one fundamental truth: access to capital is the lifeblood of any business. But something in the system was broken, and it broke my heart every day. I saw hardworking business owners with solid cash flow and real growth potential walking out of banks empty-handed, not because their businesses weren’t viable, but because they didn’t fit a rigid, outdated lending model.

They had great businesses making money, but they didn’t have perfect credit scores or hadn’t been in business long enough. That’s when it hit me: the system was backwards. Banks were evaluating businesses on credit history instead of actual performance, looking at paperwork instead of real cash flow. What if repayments could be tied to actual sales, not fixed payments that crush businesses during slow periods?

As an entrepreneur, I’ve lived that frustration of needing capital to grow, seize an opportunity, or handle an emergency, and traditional financing just isn’t there. Just the other day we funded a medical health group with ten offices, $770,000 to help them expand, in less than 24 hours from receiving the application and documents. That’s teamwork.

So I envisioned a company that funds businesses based on real performance, not just a credit score, where payments adjust with your sales: when you do well you pay more, when times are tough you pay less. In 2015 we built FundKite from the ground up, assembling underwriters who understood real business challenges and technology specialists who could build something innovative. We weren’t building another lending company; we were reimagining how small business funding should work.

As an entrepreneur, I always found it hard to get access to money, and even harder to ask people for it. Asking for capital for an unproven business can feel like begging, and it can almost kill your desire to move forward. That experience is part of why we built this.

The traditional banking system has a fundamental flaw: it doesn’t really lend to small businesses. You can have a restaurant busy seven nights a week doing hundreds of thousands a month, but if the owner had a credit issue a couple of years ago, the bank says no. Banks don’t look at your revenue, your reviews, or what customers think; they’re designed to take as little risk as possible and make as much money as they can.

That’s where we come in. We’re also people, and we look at your business as a whole and at how funding can help it grow, rather than reducing you to a credit score. I can’t change the banking world, but we could take a completely different approach. Our strategy is to treat our small-business merchants as partners rather than customers, because that builds a more honest relationship and a better chance of a repeat customer.

When we started FundKite, the hard part was explaining the product to business owners and investors, and making good decisions about which businesses to fund. People thought I was crazy for funding small businesses without a long track record. But I saw the problem we were going to solve, and I kept pushing forward.

So many business owners are rejected simply because of a credit score, as if a score tells the whole story. Years ago you knew your banker by name and could call for help. Today everything is automated; banks operate on algorithms based on your credit score and assets. The problem was you had no one to call. As our COO, a lifelong banker, says: it’s amazing what we do for businesses that banks couldn’t. Banks always say no. We say yes.

Most small businesses constantly face cash flow problems: a receivable comes in late, a machine breaks, business is slow. One of their biggest issues is waiting on a bank, a week for an answer, a month for funding, or 60 to 90 days through an SBA loan. They need money now. In a 2024 survey, 88% of small businesses reported cash flow issues, nearly nine out of ten.

These are restaurant owners who pack their dining rooms, contractors with full pipelines, medical practices with steady patients, but at the bank they’re just another credit score on a spreadsheet. We had a full-service cabinet and flooring company growing so fast it couldn’t buy enough product to fulfill orders, success itself became the problem. If a business can’t bridge that gap, it can be forced to lay off staff or close. Waiting 90 days for funding to fill a specific need is not good business.

Timing is everything. If you have a toothache, you see a dentist quickly to stop the pain. Lack of cash is a major toothache, if you can’t access capital while building a business, how do you get to the next stage? So we created a revolutionary repayment model based on a percentage of your sales. When your business does well you pay more; when it’s slow you pay less; when you have no sales, you have no payment that day.

There are no minimum payments, which is critical and separates us from competitors. If revenue drops 50%, the payment drops 50%. Our system reconciles in real time, something I know our competition doesn’t do, and it’s a huge help to merchants because their cash flow is never crushed by a fixed payment during a slow week.

We can approve businesses in as little as 4 hours and fund within 24 hours because we built proprietary technology that analyzes real-time bank statements and cash flow patterns instead of relying on outdated credit reports. We look at daily deposits, transaction patterns, and seasonal trends, the real picture of your business. No two businesses operate alike, so everyone gets an individual look.

Most funders require a fixed monthly payment; we reconcile daily, so payments move with sales, which is far more flexible for seasonal businesses. When we provide funding, we purchase your future receivables and collect a fixed percentage of sales, not an interest rate. If our rate is 10%, then $100 in sales means a $10 payment that day, $300 means $30, and a day with no sales means no payment.

We work with businesses operating for as little as 6 months, generating $10,000 or more in monthly revenue, with credit scores starting around 550. We’re not looking for perfection, we’re looking for real businesses, real cash flow, and real potential. The process is simple: submit your application with bank statements, receive a personalized offer, finalize simple documentation, and get funded. No business plans, no collateral, no endless paperwork.

We’ve processed over 250,000 business applications and extended more than $2 billion in offers, with high approval rates because we look at the whole picture, not just a score. A bank takes weeks and asks for collateral and personal guarantees; we aim to fund in 24 to 48 hours, because nobody needs financing six months from now. You also get a personal account manager who understands your industry, not a faceless call center.

We’re not brokers or middlemen, we’re the source of capital, and our team makes the decisions in house, which means faster approvals, better terms, and direct accountability. FundKite has earned an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau and has been featured on Forbes, Fox Business, Fox News, CBS and others. The best proof of value is repeat business, more than half of our business is repeat.

We’ve served over 300 industries, from restaurants and medical practices to construction and e-commerce, and we’ve seen real transformations: restaurants expanding to new locations, practices upgrading equipment, contractors taking on larger projects. One restaurant owner with two Michelin-star locations funded a third concept and tripled revenue, a great example of revenue-based financing used responsibly.

Finding a good team is as challenging as everything else; no entrepreneur builds a business alone. We’ve hired around 65 people who work as a team and understand that we keep small businesses running by funding them quickly. Our underwriters cover any industry and deals from $10,000 to $2 million and up.

If you need funding, don’t wait. It’s no risk to find out if you qualify and for how much, with minimal documentation and a fast answer. We can approve in as little as 4 hours and fund as fast as 24 hours. And we’re not stopping at funding, we’re building a financial services ecosystem for small businesses, from funding to payment processing to cash flow management.

You may have been told no by banks and traditional lenders. Don’t take no for an answer. I envision a future where no good business gets turned away because of outdated lending criteria, where entrepreneurs can access the capital they need to build, grow, and succeed. Your success story starts with a single application. That’s the FundKite vision, and our commitment to every business owner in America.