News from the Wire

Metropolitan Equity Partners increases investment in Bizfi

Tuesday, June 28, 2016 — 12:18:19 (EDT)

New York, June 28, 2016 – Metropolitan Equity Partners (“Metropolitan”) announced it has invested $20M in Bizfi (www.bizfi.com ), the premier FinTech company that combines aggregation, funding and a marketplace for small businesses. This investment represents an increase from the $65M financing of the Company in December.

This round of financing will enable Bizfi to:

• Expand its suite of funding programs, increasing its ability to fund America’s small business capital needs.

• Increase the speed at which funding applicants access direct financing from Bizfi.

• Develop and implement a national marketing campaign designed to increase the awareness of the Bizfi brand and platform within the small to medium-sized business community.

Paul Lisiak, Managing Partner of Metropolitan stated, “While the FinTech industry has experienced some recent headwinds, our confidence in both Bizfi and its place in the alternative financing industry has never been stronger. Since our original investment, Bizfi’s management has proven month after month its ability to generate profits and growth in an industry where most companies are calculating burn rate.”

Bizfi and its proprietary marketplace and funding technologies have provided in excess of $1.7 billion in financing to more than 30,000 small businesses across the United States since 2005. The Bizfi platform has integrated with 15 funding partners, including OnDeck, (NASDAQ:ONDK), Funding Circle, Kabbage, IMCA Capital, Bluevine, SmartBiz and more than 30 additional partners that are available offline. Bizfi also participates in funding on the platform. The platform provides multiple funding options including short-term financing, medical financing, lines of credit, equipment financing, invoice financing, franchise financing, medium-term loans and long-term loans guaranteed by the U.S. Small Business Administration.

“Metropolitan has proven to have a clear vision for both Bizfi and the industry. Our relationship has deepened over the past few months and when the opportunity to raise additional capital presented itself, MEP was the most logical partner,” said Stephen Sheinbaum, Bizfi founder.

About Bizfi

Bizfi (www.bizfi.com ) is the premier FinTech company combining aggregation, funding and a participation marketplace on a single platform for small businesses. Founded in 2005, Bizfi and its family of companies have provided in excess of $1.7 billion in financing to more than 30,000 small businesses in a wide variety of industries across the United States.

Bizfi's connected marketplace instantly provides multiple funding options and real-time pre-approvals to businesses from a wide variety of funding partners. Bizfi's funding options include short-term financing, franchise financing, medical financing, lines of credit, equipment financing, invoice financing, medium-term loans and long-term loans guaranteed by the U.S. Small Business Administration. The Bizfi API provides a turnkey white label or co-branded solution that easily allows strategic partners to access the Bizfi engine and present their clients with financial offers from Bizfi lenders all while maintaining their customer's user experience. A process that once took hours, now takes minutes.

About Metropolitan Equity Partners

Metropolitan Equity Partners Management, LLC is an alternative investment manager that provides expansion capital to growing private companies via collateralized loan structures. Metropolitan was founded by Paul Lisiak who has 20 years of experience investing in private U.S companies through both debt and equity. Metropolitan traces its roots to a successful equity strategy managed by the current Metropolitan Principals which was backed by the Man Group plc. Since 2008, Metropolitan has committed over $330MM in collateralized debt investments through call funds, blind pools and institutional managed accounts. Metropolitan is based in New York City.

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Source: Company press release.