Notes on Specialty Finance

After reviewing Q2 2026 data, I'm seeing significant shifts in the merchant cash advance market. Institutional capital deployment reached $1.25 billion, approval rates hit 84 to 91 percent, and small businesses are increasingly choosing alternative financing. Here's my analysis of what these trends mean for the industry.

Concentration is the risk that quietly does the damage. Here is how I think about portfolio concentration risk, and why I underwrite the shape of the book over any single deal.

I break down why tens of thousands of restaurants rely on merchant cash advances to drive profits. Learn how flexible repayment through card sales or ACH helps restaurant owners seize opportunities instantly.

In this post, I share my Q2 2026 MCA market observations, reviewing recent Federal Reserve data, regulatory updates from the CFPB, and shifts in institutional participation.

I co-funded a $699M real estate operator's MCA. The frame I used to bring to underwriting was wrong. Here's what I learned by watching him work.

I have been tracking the merchant cash advance market 2026 numbers closely. The data matches what I hear from business owners every day. The US merchant cash advance market is growing around 9 percent a year. Traditional bank lending to small businesses is growing about half that fast. The total market size for 2026 is projected at $35.6 billion. But the real story is not the dollar amount. It is the reason behind the growth. Owners are not turning to MCA because banks said n