250+ Industries Funded. Yours Is Probably One of Them.

Business Funding for More Than 250 Industries, at Any Size

The eleven industry pages are the verticals we write about most, and they are nowhere near the whole list. Sterling Street Financial has helped obtain funding across more than 250 industries through our extensive funder network, at every size from a two-person crew to a multi-location operator. If yours is not on this page, apply anyway. The odds are our funder network has financed one like it before.

The industry matters because it changes which funders are worth approaching. A seasonal service business and an inventory-heavy retailer have different revenue shapes, and a funder who prices one of them well may have nothing useful to say about the other. That is what the application is for. It asks what you do, what the money is for and what your revenue looks like, which is enough for us to point the file at the right desks rather than at all of them.

You do not have to read your way through these pages before applying. Tell us on the application what the money is for and we will source the options that fit from our network of funders. It takes a few minutes, costs nothing and commits you to nothing. If you would rather talk it through first, call and a funding specialist will walk the same ground with you before you fill anything in.

What Changes About Funding From One Industry to the Next

Four things move between verticals, and between them they decide which funders are worth an application.

The first is the shape of the revenue. A landscaper, a pool builder and a garden center take most of the year’s money in a few months and carry payroll through the rest, while a convenience store turns its stock over every few weeks and takes cash on every day of it. A repayment set against a peak month is the wrong repayment for the first kind of business, which is why the programs that flex with sales suit a seasonal file better than a fixed monthly payment does.

The second is what the money buys. Equipment is one large ticket with a long working life and its own collateral, so it can be financed over years against the asset itself. Inventory is many smaller tickets that turn back into cash on a sell-through schedule. Receivables are money already earned and merely waiting. Three different purchases, three different repayment shapes, and a mismatch between them is the most common reason a healthy business ends up with a payment it cannot live with.

The third is how the business takes money in. A shop running heavy card volume through a terminal reads differently to an underwriter than a distributor invoicing accounts on thirty- and sixty-day terms, and a card-heavy file often gets further on its receipts than it would on its credit report.

The fourth is the paperwork. The core set barely changes — a driver’s license, recent business bank statements and a voided business check — but a card-repaid program adds processing statements, an equipment purchase adds the invoice for the machine, and a receivables program looks at your customers’ payment history rather than at yours.

Don’t See Your Industry on the List?

Send the application rather than reading your way through a page that only nearly fits. It asks what the business does, what the money is for and what the revenue looks like, and those three answers are what point your file at the right desks; the label on the front of it is a shortcut, not the decision. Calling financing companies one vertical specialist at a time is the slow way to do this. One submission here goes to our extensive network of funders and comes back with what several of them will write, from $5,000 to $1,000,000, at no cost and with nothing owed if you decline every offer.