MidOcean Partners, an alternative asset manager specializing in middle-market private equity, alternative credit and structured equity, announced that it formed a joint venture with Idea Financial, a Miami-based, technology-enabled small business lender. The joint venture will provide up to $225 million of capital to fund loans of up to $1 million to established small businesses, expanding Idea Financial’s offering beyond its existing lines of credit of up to $350,000.
Founded in 2017 by Justin Leto and Larry Bassuk, Idea Financial provides lines of credit and term loans to small businesses in 47 states. Since inception, the company has provided approximately $1.5 billion of financing to more than 10,000 small and medium-sized businesses. Idea Financial recently closed its inaugural $100 million asset-backed securitization.
“Idea Financial has built a disciplined, data-driven lending platform with a strong track record of growth and consistent credit performance,” Teddy Tawil, managing director and co-head of opportunistic credit at MidOcean, said. “Established small businesses need larger and more flexible financing than they can readily obtain from traditional lenders, and Idea is well positioned to meet that demand. We are excited to partner with the Idea team as they extend their platform to larger loan sizes, and we look forward to supporting their continued growth.”
“For years, our customers and applicants have been asking us for larger loans to fund their next stage of growth, and we’ve had to leave much of that demand unmet,” Santiago Rubio, chief financial officer of Idea Financial, said. “This joint venture with MidOcean gives us dedicated capital to say yes to the businesses that already know and trust us. With up to $225 million of capital behind loans of up to $1 million, we can now serve established businesses at a much larger scale. We expect this partnership to drive significant origination growth and to be transformational for Idea Financial.”
