Tech without a single campus
Silicon Valley is known as a global center for high technology and innovation, located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area. Los Angeles works differently. It is the second-most populous city in the United States, it has a diverse economy with a broad range of industries, and it is a major hub for film and television. Tech here often grows next to those other industries: media technology, e-commerce brands, health tech, logistics software, and IT services for the businesses around them.
Los Angeles had 3,898,747 residents in the 2020 census, so a tech founder or IT shop here has plenty of local clients, but each cluster of customers pays on its own schedule.
Two kinds of tech business, two cash problems
The product company
A startup spends first and earns later. Salaries, cloud costs and design come before revenue. The question is runway: how many months can the business operate before it must raise money or become profitable? Working capital can extend a few months if revenue is already coming in.
The services company
An IT firm or dev shop has revenue immediately, but is paid on invoice terms. Staff are paid every two weeks while clients take 30 to 60 days. The question is receivables: how many weeks of payroll are sitting in unpaid invoices?
A quick runway worksheet
- Add monthly payroll, contractors, software, rent and insurance.
- Subtract average monthly cash collected from clients.
- Divide cash on hand by the difference. The result is your months of runway.
- Decide what number of months you need to ride out a delayed payment or to close a new contract.
For illustration only: costs of $55,000 a month, collections of $40,000 and $45,000 in the bank leave three months of runway. A funding request would be sized to cover the gap you want to remove, not simply the largest number available.
What to have ready when you apply
Pull your last three months of business bank statements and a short, plain note on what the money is for: a specific hire, a client onboarding, a month of payroll while a large invoice clears. Be ready to say which clients pay you and roughly when. Tech owners often have recurring revenue, which is useful context for a funder reading your statements. If your revenue is project-based, a simple list of expected payments over the next two months shows how the funding fits into your plan.
Application details and related options
We fund $25,000 to $5,000,000, with funding in as little as 24 hours after a complete file. FICO 500+ is considered, about three months of business bank statements are requested, and no tax returns are required. The application takes about five minutes with a soft credit pull. Sole proprietors, such as solo developers and consultants, can apply.
Related pages: working capital, startup business options, and business lines of credit. When you are ready, apply here.