LIGHTER CAPITAL'S GRIT & GROWTH AWARD

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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.”

“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."

“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.”

"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."

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

"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."

"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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

"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."

"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."

“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.”

“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.”