Lift Fund
Is This Your Business?Author: Kaitlyn Short
LiftFund's began in San Antonio, Texas in 1994 in conjunction with the micro-lending organization Acción International that offers micro-loans in Latin America. LiftFund incorporates the same mission and ideas in the U.S that Accion uses in Latin America. LiftFund is a non-profit organization that helps small businesses who have a hard time accessing funding. Consumers that choose LiftFund should remember that they must have a credit score of 550 or higher.
Top Ranked Companies
The Good
- Loans Up to $1 Million
- Simple Application Process
- Past Success
- Educational Resources
Loans Up to $1 Million
For borrowers, the maximum amount for loans is $1 million. When it comes to independent lenders, this amount is higher than many other providers can offer. This loan amount gives businesses the opportunity to get established or to expand their business.
Simple Application Process
All applications can be completed online, and even companies without good credit scores will be considered. While LiftFund mentions that the average credit score they approve is 575, they say that they will not make their decisions based on credit score. All credit scores will be considered, and provided that the rest of the business's qualifications warrant trust, even those with bad credit scores can be approved for a loan.
Past Success
LiftFund's website offers many success stories and testimonials of current and past borrowers who found what they were looking for from LiftFund. These success stories are divided by state and/or city, and they give good indication of the types of businesses who have borrowed from LiftFund. Reading these success stories gives a prospective borrower the opportunity to familiarize themselves with LiftFund's business practices.
Educational Resources
LiftFund also positions themselves as a thought-leader in the entrepreneurial industry. They offer online resources such as templates for business plans, financial templates, as well as instructional videos and a blog. In addition to these online resources, LiftFund offers events and seminars to help educate and boost the entrepreneurial community. There is also a specific webpage dedicated to what LiftFund calls the Women's Business Center. This resource gives women specific events geared toward their unique struggles in entrepreneurship as well as the opportunity to consult with LiftFund about their business plans. To summarize the benefits of borrowing from LiftFund, please see the following list:
- Maximum loans of up to $1 million
- Good credit not required
- Case studies and other testimonials online
- Excellent instructional resources online
- Women's Business Center resources
The Bad
- Lacking Information
- Funding Time
- Limited Service Area
- Collateral
Lacking Information
Unfortunately, LiftFund's website does not offer enough information to fully evaluate the good and the bad. We will however, try to provide you with the information that we were able to find, and hopefully give you a good indication if you would like to contact them for further evaluation or to apply for a loan. There are many things we wish the LiftFund website would have included. Here is a list of the items that are not included on the LiftFund website that any prospective buyer should make sure they find out:
- Interest rates
- Qualifications for applying for a loan
- Prepayment penalties
- Origination fees
- Closing fees
While LiftFund's website is relatively bare in specific information, they do provide some information that compares negatively to some of the other lenders we have reviewed.
Funding Time
LiftFund's turnaround time looks more like a big bank than an independent lender. Whereas other lenders are able to offer approval times of one to three days, LiftFund claims it will take around one month for them to approve a loan. This approval time is a drawback for LiftFund, and prospective borrowers should know that there are other lenders who will disburse the loan money more quickly.
Limited Service Area
LiftFund also only serves 13 states. These states are all located in the southeastern region of the United States and they include the following:
- New Mexico
- Texas
- Oklahoma
- Missouri
- Arkansas
- Louisiana
- Mississippi
- Kentucky
- Tennessee
- Alabama
- Georgia
- South Carolina
- Florida
Borrowers outside of this states cannot consider LiftFund as an option.
Collateral
Prospective borrowers must also be prepared to offer some sort of business or third-party collateral in order to accept the loan. The loans that LiftFund offers are all secured loans and require some collateral by the borrower.
The Bottom Line
The bottom line is that LiftFund acts more like a traditional bank than some of the other online business lenders we have reviews. The main benefit of LiftFund is that they do not evaluate any business's eligibility for a loan through a credit score only. Their mission is to evaluate businesses based on their stories and other qualifications (although their website does not specifically list these qualifications), and then to supply loans to businesses with great potential. The truth about our review of LiftFund is that we're unable to properly recommend them or not because their website lacks some vital information. In order to fully evaluate if LiftFund is a viable option, prospective buyers should contact LiftFund for further evaluation.
