Aims to help brokers and clients struggling to get finance
New non-bank lender Rapital has launched in Australia with the aim of helping brokers and their small to medium business clients who are having trouble getting access to much-needed finance solutions.
The specialist lender, which officially opens for business today, is aimed at SMEs which for various reasons, including low or bad credit scores, liquidations or challenging industries, have difficulty in securing loans from banks or other lenders.
Rapital offers unsecured business loans with a personal guarantee. The loan range is from $5,000 to $250,000, with time to approval in as little as three hours.
It launched in the UK back in July, gaining plenty of traction with finance brokers there and now it has set up in Australia, based in Parramatta, Sydney.
MPA caught up with Rapital founder David Goldin (pictured above), who is also the CEO and founder of Capify, to find out more about Rapital.
Rapital’s relationship to Capify
Goldin said while Rapital would share an office and resources with Capify’s 40 staff, it had a different source of capital, product and brand. “It’s a new lender and a new product in the marketplace,” Goldin said.
Rapital differed from Capify in terms of the industries, credit profiles and business challenges it considered.
Capify set up in the US over 20 years ago, expanding into the UK and Australia in 2008.
“Capify was Australia’s first alternative online SME lender since 2008,” said Goldin. “It has evolved through the years, essentially doing unsecured lending, some secured lending and competing with the likes of Prospa, Moula and Lumi.”
In 2019, Capify was backed by a $145 million credit facility from Goldman Sachs and then in April 2024 it refinanced with Pollen Street Capital to a $194m credit facility.
Rapital aims to fill credit gap
SMEs are finding it difficult to get the finance they need, especially in a difficult economic environment. According to a survey by Small Business Loans Australia, 90% of businesses indicated they would exercise caution in borrowing more money in 2024.
Goldin said Rapital was established because there was a gap in the market with demand from SMEs that needed additional capital that was not being met.
“They may have taken a loan from an online lender, they may have taken a loan from a bank, where the bank has security over the business, they may be credit challenged.
“We have launched Rapital for a combination of all of that – whether it’s challenging industries or challenging situations, whether they’ve taken on additional borrowing and they need a solution, a bridge.”
Rapital offers quick decisioning and is focused on rolling its loans out through brokers and aggregator partners, Goldin said.
“Our tagline is turning a no into a yes. A brokerage can’t get every single deal funded. We're able to really look at deal. We'd like to think of ourselves as being very creative, very open minded.”
Goldin said the aim of Rapital was to be an innovative SME lender with rapid approvals.
“While we can’t approve every single deal, we’re looking at industries that others won’t look at, we're looking at credit profiles others won't look at, we're looking at deals that have taken out lending from banks and other online lenders typically won't look at.
“We hope to be a good tool in a broker's toolkit when they either just need a fast approval, where in fact it could be good credit and they don't want to wait for the bank, or it's a file that they can't get approved from either traditional or online lender that we're willing to take a look at.”
Goldin said Rapital had been beta-tested in the UK and it had enjoyed great success working with brokers.
In Australia, loan purposes varied greatly and could include working capital, inventory, buying out a partner, purchasing assets and equipment.
While Rapital had yet to sign up to any aggregator lending panels or sign any partnerships, Goldin said it had done some beta testing with some Australian brokers and the results had been very good.
“Talking to brokers – they’re seeing a lot of files being declined, we’re trying to fill that gap. It’s a win for the customer that they can get that funding, it’s a win for the broker and it’s a win for Rapital looking to become an originator of this type of loan in the marketplace.”
Rapital’s cash flow lending is technology-driven and uses open banking, including digital bank statements to make decisions in as little as three hours, said Goldin.
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