Capital’s Venture Debt Alternative To Invest $100M In Startups

venture capital planning

New York-based FinTech startup Capital, an alternative financing company for startups, launched on Wednesday (Oct. 30) with a $100 million fund to invest in middle-stage companies, Capital announced in a press release.

The Capital Machine — its automated investing solution — underwrites companies’ financial data automatically for funding up to $50 million in less than 24 hours, Co-Founder and CEO Blair Silverberg said. The software computes analytics and insights that evaluate a company’s historical capital allocation and cost of capital. 

Silverberg, a former Silicon Valley Draper Fisher Jurvetson investor, noticed that tech startups tend to take on significantly less debt than other privately funded companies. 

“Until now, company owners have been operating in the dark with little visibility into the inner workings of the investors they pitch and how those investors view their businesses,” Silverberg said. “With Capital, we’re bringing information to the forefront by leveraging technology to streamline antiquated processes and equip companies with the right funding and information needed to build great businesses.”

Capital provides its investment findings to companies along with financing terms. Companies that accept then gain access to Capital’s analytics dashboard, which shows how the funding generates business value. It also pinpoints developing business trends and offers additional capital available over time.

“Capital is a modern investing alternative built to favor the entrepreneur,” said Steve Jurvetson, founder and managing director of Future Ventures and early investor in companies ranging from Hotmail to SpaceX and Tesla. “If you look at the trends in the flurry of failed IPOs and fundraisings this year, many could have avoided the pain and equity dilution if they understood their cost of capital earlier and opted for alternative financing options like venture debt.”

Along with Silverberg, the company was co-founded by Csaba Konkoly, an alternative investments expert, and Chris Olivares, a technologist. It’s backed by Future Ventures, Greycroft, Wavemaker and Disruptive, as well as others.

The B2B FinTech startup space bucked any notion of a venture capital downturn with several high-value deals announced in May, and one of the busiest VC investment roundup periods for the B2B space so far this year.