How to know you’re ready for more financing

In general, most Funding Circle borrowers become eligible to apply for additional financing once they have made six on-time payments on their first Funding Circle loan.

Considering how well your first Funding Circle experience went, the benefits of an additional Funding Circle loan may already be obvious to you. But in case you need an extra jolt of motivation after that very relaxing sigh of relief, here are a few examples of how your business could benefit from additional, affordable financing:

You have plans for new growth

You saw the positive impact your first Funding Circle loan had on your business, imagine what you could do with a fresh injection of capital.

Peter Dering, cofounder of Peak Design, came to Funding Circle for help with an inventory purchase for his young camera accessory business. After the success of his first loan, Peter returned for additional capital, which he used to launch two new product lines. Peak Design now has over 50 products and is one of the most respected camera accessory brands in the professional photography industry, winning several awards from National Geographic for their innovative designs.

Eyal Levy, founder of Yogibo, used his first Funding Circle loan to open a store in Maryland where he could sell his luxury bean bags and body pillows. He came back to Funding Circle 11 months later and was approved for an additional $260,000 to open another storefront across the Potomac River, in Virginia.

Once you’ve used your first Funding Circle loan to launch a new product or open a new location, your growth doesn’t end there.

Maybe you need to add another employee to your payroll to help sell that product or staff that store. Maybe this quarter is the right time to finally launch that online marketing campaign you’ve been thinking about so your existing customers can learn about your brand’s recent updates. The flexibility of Funding Circle’s business term loans allows you to put your cash to work how and when you need it.

Eyal Levy in his new Yogibo store, financed with a Funding Circle term loan

You want to decrease your current monthly payments

There are two ways that refinancing your existing Funding Circle loan may lead to lower monthly payments:

You may qualify for a lower interest rate

If you used your first Funding Circle loan to increase your business’ annual revenue and your bottom line, you might qualify for a lower interest rate than you did the first time you applied.

Because we are already familiar with your business, you can use this link to log in to your account and begin a new application. We will ask you to confirm the business details you provided in your prior application and may ask a few more questions about your recent financials before giving you a decision in as little as 24 hours.

This process will not affect the interest rate on your previous Funding Circle loan, and because all of our offers are non-binding it’s a fast and easy way to see if your credit profile has improved enough to qualify for a lower interest rate.

You may qualify for a longer term length

By spreading your repayments over 60 months instead of 12 or 24, your annual interest rate might increase, but the amount you owe each month may decrease substantially — freeing up additional cash that you can reinvest into your business’ growth.

Not all businesses will qualify for longer term lengths, but you can play around with our business loan calculator to explore the impact term length can have on your monthly payment.

Keep in mind that all refinances of existing Funding Circle debt requires at least $25,000 of new capital, so if you’re exploring this option you will need to specify how those additional funds will be used to achieve your business’ goals for growth.

How to apply for additional financing

Existing Funding Circle borrowers are generally eligible to apply for additional financing after they have made six on-time payments on their original Funding Circle loan.

If you still have payments left on your original Funding Circle loan, reapplying won’t have any impact on the interest rate of your current loan until you review our non-binding offer and choose whether or not to accept it. While you must be current on all your Funding Circle payments to qualify, that alone does not guarantee you will be approved for additional funds.

Are you ready to grow more?

Get more capital

If you’re planning to apply for additional capital, here are a few things you can do to improve the strength of your credit profile:

• Make all payments on existing Funding Circle loans on time.
• Don’t take additional debt capital from other lenders, particularly short-term or high-interest cash advances.
• Use the proceeds from your first loan to invest in projects that result in demonstrable growth for your business’ top and bottom lines.
• Maintain the health of your personal FICO score by limiting the number of inquiries on your report (don’t apply for financing from multiple lenders), keeping your credit card spending in line, and following these steps.
• Begin to collect and organize these basic financial documents that we may request as part of your application. In most cases, you should have filed at least one new tax return since the last time you submitted an application.

As you know, our normal application only takes about 10 minutes to complete, but this time around it’s even easier. As a returning borrower, you can use this link to log in and begin an application.

Some of your business’ details will already be pre-filled, so you can simply confirm the information is correct and then select how much capital you need to reach your next level of growth — plus your current loan balance, if you still have debt with Funding Circle you’d like to refinance.

Your personal account manager will let you know if we require any additional documentation, and then you can expect to receive a credit decision in as little as 24 hours.

asdfad