Bizfi, the FinTech company whose online small business finance platform combines aggregation, funding and a participation marketplace, has provided a structured financing facility of $65 million to Metropolitan Equity Partners to drive growth.

Closing this financing round enables Bizfi to:

• Expand its suite of funding programs, increasing its ability to fund America’s small business capital needs.
• Increase the speed at which funding applicants access direct financing from Bizfi.
• Develop and implement a national marketing campaign designed to increase the awareness of the Bizfi brand and platform within the small to medium-sized business community.

Bizfi and its proprietary marketplace and funding technologies have provided in excess of $1.3 billion in financing to more than 26,000 small businesses across the U.S. since 2005. Since Bizfi launched its aggregation platform in 2015, the company has experienced 72% growth in year-over-year gross originations.

Metropolitan’s investment provides the financial flexibility and strength to support Bizfi’s growth plans. The new investment expands upon Metropolitan’s prior involvement as an active buyer of loan participations and a mezzanine lender to the company for the past three years.

Bizfi’s proprietary technology and aggregation platform efficiently gathers applicant information from a wide variety of sources to quickly offer commercial funding products including loans and other capital products to small businesses.

Bizfi’s technology is further strengthened by strategic relationships with more than 45 funding partners, including OnDeck, Funding Circle, IMCA Capital, Bluevine and Kabbage. Bizfi also participates as a lender on the platform. Regardless of what kind of capital is sought from any of the funding partners, the small business owner is guided through the entire process by a Bizfi funding concierge that is assigned specifically to him or her.

“Metropolitan believes that the future of small business lending is being built by Bizfi. Their aggregation and direct lending marketplace is disrupting the fast growing FinTech industry,” said Paul Lisiak, managing partner of Metropolitan Equity Partners. “Our new investment is the result of the impressive performance we have directly experienced as a lender and participant in the company’s financing products over the past three years. In the rapidly evolving FinTech space, Bizfi’s management team has elegantly expanded their product offerings to create a platform that holistically meets the dynamic funding needs of small businesses. We look forward to being a part of Bizfi as they further solidify their position as a leader in the financial technology space.”

Metropolitan has been an active investor in the alternative lending and FinTech space with over $100 million committed in 2015 including investments in JH Capital Group, Debt Away, New Credit America and PledgeCap.