Star Mountain Capital, a specialized investment manager with approximately $2 billion in assets under management that focuses on investing in private small and medium-sized businesses, closed a $225 million asset-based leverage facility led by ING Capital. The lending group consists of ING, CIT, TIAA Bank, Axos Bank, East West Bank, Georgia Banking Company and Customers Bank.

This leverage facility is for Star Mountain Capital’s third strategic credit income fund and provides additional capital to make debt and equity investments in U.S. small and medium-size businesses that generally have between $15 million and $250 million in annual revenues.

“We are delighted to have attracted such a high caliber group of new and existing bank relationships as partners into our third flagship value-added direct lending fund,” Brett Hickey, founder and CEO of Star Mountain Capital, said.

“We were pleased with the strong demand to support our strategic private lending business,” Stephen Paras, chief credit officer of Star Mountain Capital, said.

“We, together with our lending partners, are excited about the launch of this partnership with Star Mountain,” Patrick Frisch, head of fund finance in the Americas at ING, said. “We look forward to supporting the continued growth of their business and to furthering our relationship with the Star Mountain Capital team.”

Keefe, Bruyette & Woods advised Star Mountain Capital on this transaction and Lowenstein Sandler provided legal representation. Dechert represented ING.