“Lighter Capital is more than a debt provider. They have an amazing community, unique perks to help reduce overhead, and provide useful insights through their platform. They'll share their vast experience to help you scale your business and make introductions to get you closer to an exit.”
Joe Marhamati
COO and Co-Founder, Sunvoy

100% Ownership, Zero Dilution
We never take equity, board seats, or control of your business. You retain your ownership, decision-making power, and upside.
-
Significantly cheaper than equity funding
-
No complicated governance issues
-
No valuation negotiations or painful down rounds
-
Freedom to grow at your own pace
Capital When You Need It
Structured to support recurring revenue businesses, financing is right-sized to where your startup is at and we make it easy to get more money as you grow.
-
Flexible repayment options
-
Access to follow-on funding in as little as 90 days
-
No overly-restrictive covenants
Good Money, Fast
Get fast access to growth capital with reasonable loan terms that align with the cash flow and revenue dynamics of your SaaS business.
-
Short, objective application and approval process
-
Transparent terms and pricing—no misleading discount rates or surprises
-
Longer payback terms (up to 4 years)
-
No collateral requirement
Tired of getting stuck with VCs?
Fund growth without wasting time, energy, or equity.
VC may not be right for your SaaS startup. Or maybe raising VC isn’t the right play right now. Whether you want to bootstrap to a successful exit or you’re trying to get traction to woo future investors, Lighter Capital’s non-dilutive debt financing solutions and VC-like support can help get you there—on your terms.
Join 600+ founders who kept control of their companies and saved billions in equity.
SaaS Is Our Specialty
What's the ROI from non-dilutive debt?
With capital to jump on clear and present opportunities, you can make strategic investments in your business that grow revenue faster and produce returns that significantly outweigh the cost of capital. When you also hold onto your equity, potential long-term outcomes become a lot more lucrative.
Buyout investors or acquire a company
Bridge capital to an equity round
Smooth out inconsistent cash flow
Build your company valuation
Expand tech and people resources
Invest in sales and marketing
Get up to $4 million to grow your SaaS business on your terms.
0
Equity Dilution
$370M+
Capital Deployed
600+
Startups Funded
Find your founder-funding fit here.
SaaS entrepreneurs used to have limited fundraising options that were time consuming, costly, risky, and more often than not, a dead end. Underserved by traditional banks and frequently misaligned with VC, revenue-based financing quickly became an invaluable alternative for growing SaaS startups when we brought it to market more than 15 years ago.
Lighter Capital is the trusted leader in SaaS financing with over a decade of experience helping tech startups grow.

$200K+ in Discounts & Services
Your Strategic Partner in Growth
Join an engaged network of 150+ tech founders focused on capital-efficient growth
Leverage our network to amplify your brand and open up new pipelines to revenue
Collaborate regularly in peer breakout groups
Get an invite to The Lighter Summit
Let us make warm intros to the right investors when you’re ready to raise equity
AWS & Google Cloud credits
Software discounts, from back office to sales and marketing
Fractional support and managed services
Equity management solutions
And more
The extras you expect from VCs, included.
We're not your typical lender. Our team supports you throughout your journey, helping you make meaningful connections via our founder community and expansive ecosystem, so your entrepreneurial dreams can become reality.
Raising startup capital doesn't have to be so hard.
We don’t need to see a pitch deck or business plan. You don’t need to explain your tech stack or prove your market opportunity. And we don’t need to meet your current investors or advisory board. Our investment team uses historical revenue and other objective, quantifiable business metrics to quickly approve your startup for non-dilutive financing.
Apply in less than 2 minutes to get started.
HOW IT WORKS
Step 1: Apply
Answer a few simple questions about your business using our short, secure online application.
We’ll notify you within 24 hours of your application if you meet the minimum qualification requirements.*
Step 2: Qualify
Next, you’ll meet with your investment advisor, who will get to know you and your business better, and guide you through the funding process.
After you link your business’ financial information within our secure portal, our underwriting team will get to work on your loan.
Step 3: Approved
You’ll find out how much initial funding your business is approved for and receive a term sheet within a few days of connecting your financial data.
Funds can be deposited into your bank account shortly after the term sheet is signed.
*Who should apply?
-
You’re generating at least $200K in annual recurring revenue (ARR)
-
You have at least 5 paying customers
-
Software, hardware, or tech solutions with a recurring revenue pricing model (subscriptions or annual contracts)
-
You have a HQ, branch, or subsidy based in the U.S., Canada, or Australia
WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

Suzanne El-Moursi
CEO and Co-Founder
Brighthive
"We're on a growth trajectory at Brighthive, and every hour spent on fundraising takes away from growing the business. Now, we can meet the growth needs of the company while staying focused on the business, so we can seize every aspect of this agentic AI opportunity in 2025 and maximize our growth. That's exactly how it should be."
WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

Tricia Iboshi
CEO
Videon
"The Lighter Capital team has been efficient, easy to work with, and overall amazing. Lots of businesses say they're friendly to startups, but these guys prove it."
WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

Rupert Mayer
Exited Founder and Angel Investor
IPfolio
"Every two years we paid off our Lighter funding and took the next one we were eligible for. If you put the money to good use as a building block and you're successful, then you pay back the loan relatively quickly. In hindsight, it wasn't expensive and it was much cheaper than dilutive capital would have been."
WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

Wes Smith
CEO
Galaxy Semiconductor
"If we had taken a sizebale check from a venture company, we would have been on the hook for growth that might not have been realistic. Lighter Capital was the option that would grow with us, and we really appreciated that. Non-dilutive funding has enabled us to invest in this new technology stack that we're now bringing to market, and to smooth out some of the lumpiness in our invoicing. It's been great."
WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

Kylie Troy-West
Co-Founder and COO
Factor House
"A lightbulb goes off when engineers compare our product to the ways they have been seeing and managing their Kafka clusters. The financing from Lighter Capital has enabled us to turbocharge our global presence and engage directly with engineers in the UK and the US.”
WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

Bant Breen
Founder and Chairman
Qnary
“Lighter Capital’s model is so innovative—a debt provider that’s essentially a VC partner. We get the financial rigor that a VC would give us, as well as strategic guidance, and that’s been incredibly helpful."
WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

Brian Schiff
Co-Founder and CEO
Flip CX
“Lighter was brilliant because of how easy and fast it was to access capital. Being non-dilutive and affordable are great, but time is everything for a founder. The VC support was absolutely above & beyond, and included an intro to one of our eventual investors.”
WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

Dedra Chamberlin
CEO and Founder
Cirrus Identity
"As the CEO of a small and growing company, my business moves rapidly through sometimes unpredicable stages, each of which requires new tools and processes. I'm usually not an expert at those new tools and processes at first, and having access to a community of CEOs where I can seek advice and referrals is invaluable."
WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

David Lischner
CEO
Valant
“Relationships do matter. You don’t always understand this when you just look at deal terms, but the quality of people you work with matters a lot. The people at Lighter Capital have been a great sounding board when we were formulating our financing strategy.”
WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

John Stewart
CEO and Co-Founder
MapAnything (Acquired by Salesforce)
“At key times during our growth, Lighter Capital got us the funding we needed fast, allowing us to invest in the business and not to be distracted by fundraising.”
WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

Trajan Bayly
CEO
Gray Falkon
“We didn’t waste time in going after VC funding that might not exist. Lighter Capital was there at the right time, studying our business, being an easy source for non-dilutive funding, and great partners to work with.”
WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

Rob Farrow
Exited Co-Founder
Aisle Planner (Acquired by Fullsteam)
"By choosing Lighter Capital, we received more than non-dilutive funding. The access they provided to other CEOs and resources were the benefits that helped me grow the business, and eventually sell it."
WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

Tristan Handy
CEO
dbt Labs
"We didn’t set out with an explicit goal to become a VC-backed company—we were extremely happy just running a profitable small business that did good work for good people, if that’s what made the most sense. The investments we made with the Lighter Capital dollars were exactly what gave us the confidence to charge down the VC-backed route and we’ve never looked back.”
WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

Mark Bania
CEO & Co-founder
Contractor Compliance
“When the time was right for us to make a move in the market, Lighter Capital was an easy way for us to get the growth funding we needed without diluting our control. Working with Lighter Capital has been a great experience.”
WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

Michaela Wessels
CEO & Co-Founder
Style Arcade
“Lighter Capital opened up such a fast path to growth for Style Arcade, and the team has been awesome to work with. In the tech space where speed matters most, it’s having a seamless process and a strong partnership—that’s invaluable.”
WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

Blake Garrett
Exited Founder
School Bytes
“Lighter Capital helped us get the funding we needed at a critical time in our growth, allowing us to continue to aid schools around Australia with their everyday administrative tasks. Working with the team at Lighter Capital has been amazing. Our second round of non-dilutive funding was finalized within a week of the initial discussion.”
WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

Brian Clark
CEO
Courseloop
“The US venture capital firms we’re engaging with love our model and the success we’ve had in Australia and the UK. Demonstrating similar success in the US market is our last hurdle prior to our first institutional funding round. While we are on our way with UCLA as our first US client, the Lighter Capital funding will help us bridge through that transition. We’re thrilled that we’ve been able to secure the funding we need to fuel our US growth without diluting our existing shareholders. Lighter Capital not only brings friendly financing, but they provide valuable connections in both Australia and the US.”
WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

Snehal Fulzele
CEO
Cloud Lending
“If your company is just starting to see revenue and you’re looking to bring in a couple of people to grow so that you get a better valuation when you raise venture capital, I would recommend revenue-based financing.”
WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

Romeo Eilas
CEO
Intellect
"While we received multiple rounds of funding from Lighter Capital at varying times, we found that strategically having access to capital at the beginning of the year, allowed us to make key hires to launch our new products and stay ahead of the competition."
WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

Kieran Fitzpatrick
CEO
Spiketrap (Acquired by Reddit)
"Non-dilutive funding is a perfect fit for the bootstrap ethos, designed for long-term and sustainable growth via truly impactful deep-technology such as ours at Spiketrap. Lighter Capital has allowed us to focus on building a game-changing company, not pitch decks."
WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

Dogan Demir
CEO & Co-Founder
Ouva
“We have brought our product to market, but the COVID-19 pandemic has increased the healthcare sales and implementation cycles. Flexible growth funding provided by Lighter Capital has allowed us to maintain momentum and expand our footprint during this period.”
WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

Jason Girdner
Founder and CEO
Tecobi
“As our company growth accelerates and transforms to an SaaS revenue model, we felt growth capital could be effectively deployed across further software development and increasing our sales force headcount. We are delighted that Lighter Capital believed in us and saw the level of commitment we have to client success.”
Subscribe to Founders' Hub and join 35,000+ founders who aspire to be great.
Stay connected and tap into our founder knowledge base.
We created Founders' Hub so you don't have to grow it alone. It's the most comprehensive and thoughtfully curated—not to mention free—resource hub for bootstrappers and tech founders who do it differently.
If you're not ready to apply for funding, or you want up-to-date information, resources, and ideas for building a successful SaaS startup, subscribe to Founders' Hub before you go.
Explore Founders' Hub
Your success is our mission. We’ve leveraged real-time business data, feedback from our founder community, insights from experts in our vast partner network, and market trends to deliver timely, useful knowledge that helps you and your startup grow.

Download guides from entrepreneurs and other experts sharing their insights and best practices for startup financing.

You can connect with other founders and like-minded CEOs, as well as use our partner services and discounts to scale strategically.

See how much ownership you can retain with non-dilutive funding, compared to raising an equity round.

Download guides from entrepreneurs and other experts sharing their insights and best practices for startup financing.

Download guides from entrepreneurs and other experts sharing their insights and best practices for startup financing.
HOW CAN MY STARTUP USE GROWTH CAPITAL?
Growth capital provides startups with a bigger long-term investment, which enables them to scale the business more effectively than they could with smaller short-term working capital loans or their revenue streams.
Here's how we frequently see founders put their growth capital loans to work:
Fund working capital
Invest in sales and marketing
Invest in product development
Hire talent and build out new teams
Expand into new markets
Invest in infrastructure
Bridge equity funding rounds
Restructure old debt
Buy out tired investors
WHO SHOULD APPLY?
Our financing solutions are best suited for technology and SaaS startups with steady recurring revenue streams, whether that's through long-term contracts with customers or monthly subscriptions.
You should have a minimum of $200K in annual recurring revenue (ARR) or $15K MRR from a diverse customer base.
You don't need to be profitable or even have positive cash flow. We expect early-stage tech startups to be cash flow negative, or neutral at best, since you're continually pumping revenue back into the business to keep it growing.
Your business should be based in the U.S., Canada, or Australia.
Sound like you? Complete our secure online application in less than 2 minutes to get funded!
DO YOU INVEST IN COMPANIES OUTSIDE OF THE U.S., CANADA, AND AUSTRALIA?
No; however, if you have office locations or do business in any of these countries, you may be eligible. In the future, we aspire to work with startups in other global tech markets.
CAN I TALK TO SOMEONE BEFORE APPLYING?
Absolutely. Our online application is the quickest way to get the information we need for a productive conversation that answers all your questions. If you simply want to chat with one of our Investment Advisors, you can contact us here.