CircleUp Credit Advisors secures over $200M to fuel today's fast-growing consumer brands

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 19, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- CircleUp Credit Advisors ("CCA"), a division of the investment platform, CircleUp, announced it has secured over $200M to support emerging consumer brands with access to non-dilutive working capital financing. Investors participating in the fund include Michigan Retirement Systems, Pacific Life Insurance Company, and other notable investors. A financing facility was led by Community Investment Management.

Since first launching in 2017, CircleUp Credit Advisors has originated over $300M in loans. With originations growing approximately 3x in the past year, the infusion of new capital will allow CCA to increase its scale and further help consumer product entrepreneurs gain access to credit. Working capital financing solves a critical pain point for high-growth businesses. By leveraging valuable assets on a consumer product business' balance sheet (e.g. IOUs from Walmart or shelf-stable inventory), working capital financing reduces the need for entrepreneurs to dilute their equity ownership to finance growth in their core operations. With one of the most flexible and holistic working capital solutions available, CCA provides brands that sell either online or through traditional wholesale channels with a comprehensive and affordable path to growth.

"We've had an incredible year at Liquid I.V., and taking on working capital was a crucial next step for our business," said Brandin Cohen, founder and CEO of Liquid I.V. "CircleUp Credit Advisors has been a fantastic partner in accelerating that growth," he continued. "The team is easy to work with and their expertise in the consumer industry is truly top-notch. Partnering with CircleUp Credit Advisors just made sense."

Driven by its mission to help entrepreneurs thrive, CircleUp takes a data-driven approach to investing and is democratizing access to capital. Investment decisions across all funds are informed by the company's proprietary technology, Helio, that tracks and evaluates a growing universe of more than 1.4M companies across 200+ sources. Consequently, nearly 50% of the companies across CircleUp's equity and credit portfolio are female-founded or female-led teams.

"Our borrowers are growing at roughly 200% annually," said Asher Hochberg, Managing Director of CircleUp Credit Advisors. "These are high-growth businesses that are mispriced or underserved by other lenders who do not have the consumer expertise or data to properly evaluate their working capital assets and growth prospects. We're extremely proud of the work we've done so far, and are looking forward to this next chapter."

In addition to unlocking access to capital, CircleUp offers portfolio companies the opportunity to join our thriving community of 250 entrepreneurs and seasoned executives. Members support one another by collaborating, and sharing resources and best practices from their experience in the consumer industry.

About CircleUp
On a mission to help entrepreneurs thrive, CircleUp harnesses the power of data to provide capital and resources to consumer brands. Through Helio, the company's technology platform that identifies, classifies, and evaluates consumer and retail companies, CircleUp has built the world's most robust repository of CPG and retail intelligence and takes a quantitative approach to investing in promising entrepreneurs.

Founded in 2012, CircleUp is headquartered in San Francisco and backed by Union Square Ventures, GV, Canaan Partners, QED Investors, and others. Learn more at www.circleup.com

Testimonials may not be representative of the experience of others and are no guarantee of future performance or success. No individuals were compensated in exchange for their testimonials.

SOURCE CircleUp

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