Notes on Specialty Finance

A new data point on private credit caught my attention, and it's worth a closer look.

Most funders judge revenue-based funding by stack position. I don't. After years in this, what predicts performance is capacity — revenue, bank consistency, and real coverage of what's already owed. Here's why position is the lazy metric.

Most files on funding platforms look fine on paper. The ones that stop me are the renewals. After twenty years in specialty finance underwriting, here is the signal I trust above almost everything else.

I pulled the Q1 numbers this week. Five sectors are leading non-bank capital demand across the country, and they're the same five sitting on my desk most days. Here's what I see when I read these files.

I have been reviewing files for a long time. The use case for cash flow financing has changed. It used to be emergency capital for a slow month or a surprise expense. Now I open a file and the entire growth plan is built around it. New hires, new locations, inventory orders. This is the primary way most small businesses on Main Street are growing now. Not bank loans. Not SBA. Cash flow financing. When did this happen?