Business finance · Global network
A club of qualified funders: the right business finance partner from the very first approach
Banks, private debt funds, family offices, factors, asset finance providers: in every country where we work, we have built and qualified a club of funders — instruments offered, size of the companies they finance, ticket sizes, security required, situations accepted. A dedicated team updates these criteria every day. The result: your business finance request is presented only to counterparties whose investment thesis genuinely matches your need.
01 · The diagnosis
Why business finance applications so often fail — even with a strong file
A refusal is rarely a verdict on the quality of the business. In the vast majority of cases it is a targeting problem: the file was sent to a funder whose lending criteria — never published in full — simply did not match the need.
Every funder operates within a precise thesis. A regional bank does not finance the same companies as a private debt fund; a factor does not assess a file the way an asset finance provider does; a family office has neither the constraints nor the time horizon of a mezzanine fund. And within each category, every institution applies its own limits: minimum and maximum company revenue, minimum and maximum ticket, security required, sectors accepted or excluded, situations tolerated — growth, turnaround, succession, cash-flow pressure.
A business owner searching alone runs into three walls:
The criteria are invisible. No funder publishes its full grid. The owner discovers the mismatch after weeks of discussion — if anyone explains it.
The criteria keep moving. A fund that closes a raise opens up its appetite; an institution overexposed to a sector closes it without saying so. What was true six months ago no longer is. An economic downturn can reshuffle appetites within weeks.
Every refusal has a cost. Beyond the time lost, a string of poorly targeted approaches damages the file's reputation in a market where finance teams talk to each other.
It is this finding, confirmed deal after deal, that led us to build something other than an address book: a qualified club, maintained daily, in every country where we work.
02 · The club
A global club covering every type of business funder
In each of the 120+ countries covered by our network, the club brings together every category of funder likely to back a company with revenue of EUR 1–200 million. It is not a list: it is a living map of the business finance market, category by category, institution by institution.
Bank debt
Banks and banking syndicates
Medium- and long-term loans, acquisition debt, working capital facilities, bonds and guarantees. The ratios a banking syndicate analyses before committing.
Private debt
Debt funds, mezzanine, unitranche
Non-bank finance for deals that bank debt alone cannot carry: external growth, recapitalisation, special situations.
Equity
Family offices and investment funds
Equity and quasi-equity, minority or majority stakes, long-term family wealth strategies or corporate venture.
Receivables
Factors and credit insurers
Working capital finance through factoring and reverse factoring, plus cover for customer credit risk.
Assets
Leasing companies and asset finance providers
Equipment and property leasing, sale and leaseback, finance secured on identified assets.
Fast & alternative
Platforms and digital lenders
Instant business loans and alternative solutions to seize an opportunity without delay.
Structured
SPV and fiducie-based finance
Lenders working on structures that ring-fence risk — SPV financing, the French security trust (fiducie-sûreté), pledges over shares.
Public
Guarantee bodies
Schemes covering a portion of the bank's risk — often the lever that gets a tight file over the line without changing its ratios.
Why a club, and not a database
A database lists names. A club rests on relationships that are kept alive: we know the teams, their theses, their decision processes and their current constraints. That relationship is what gets a file read quickly — and a reasoned answer rather than silence.
03 · Qualification
Every funder qualified on its real lending criteria
The value of the club lies not in the number of its members but in the depth of their qualification. For each funder, we document and maintain a structured profile covering all of its lending criteria — including those it publishes nowhere.
This grid follows the same qualification logic we apply to sourcing acquisition targets: just as you do not approach a business owner without understanding their company, you do not present a file to a funder without checking its thesis. In both cases, upfront qualification is what turns a list into opportunities.
04 · Daily updates
A dedicated team updates every funder, every day
A funder database that is not maintained becomes wrong within months. A funder's criteria are not fixed: they shift with its fundraising, its sector exposure, the credit cycle, team moves and internal trade-offs. This is the most demanding — and the most distinctive — part of the system.
Our dedicated team monitors every club member daily:
Current appetite. Funds available, sectors sought or frozen, ticket ranges actually applied on recent deals.
Changes in criteria. A higher revenue floor, tougher security requirements, a move into a new instrument.
The people in post. A file sent to the right person, in the right team, does not follow the same path as one dropped into a generic inbox.
Lessons learned. Every file presented enriches the funder's profile: actual assessment times, recurring sticking points, quality of feedback. This build-up of knowledge follows the same logic that feeds M&A deal flow: every interaction is data that serves the next files.
What fresh data changes
Between a static directory and a qualification updated the day before, the difference is not one of degree but of kind: in the first case you approach funders as they were; in the second, as they are. In a market where appetites can turn within weeks, that is often the whole difference between a file that gets assessed and one that gets set aside.
05 · The method
From the statutory accounts to the funder: the complete chain
The club is only the last link in a chain that starts in your accounts. Our method systematically connects three questions the market too often treats separately: what is the real need, which instrument meets it, and which funder offers that instrument for your profile.
Review of the statutory accounts
Analysis of the last three financial years: balance sheet structure, normalised profitability, working capital requirement, remaining debt capacity, assets that can be used as collateral — receivables, inventory, property, shares. This review often uncovers sources of finance the company had not seen: receivables that can be funded through factoring, a building that can be released through a sale and leaseback, shares that can be pledged.
Qualifying the need
Amount, time horizon, seasonality, use of funds: financing an acquisition, an investment, working capital or a recapitalisation are four different problems calling for different answers. Our simulator gives a first order of magnitude in a few minutes.
Choosing the instruments
Each need has its instrument — and often a combination: senior debt and vendor financing for a buyout, factoring for receivables, an SPV structure to ring-fence a project's risk, an LBO, MBO or OBO structure for an equity deal, an earn-out to bridge two valuations.
Selecting compatible funders
Matching the need against the club's profiles: company size within the funder's limits, amount within its ticket range, instrument within its offering, situation within its criteria, security available at the expected level. Only counterparties whose thesis matches remain — usually a short list, and that is precisely what makes it valuable.
Presenting the file in the expected format
Each category of funder reads a file differently. We present yours in the format and with the indicators each counterparty expects — leverage and coverage ratios for a banking syndicate, thesis and trajectory for a fund, quality of receivables for a factor — under confidentiality where the context requires it. You then continue the discussion directly with the interested counterparties.
06 · Problems solved
What qualifying funders solves in practice
07 · Time saved
A major time saving — and faster answers
Time is the most underestimated variable in a search for business finance. An acquisition opportunity, a cash need or a refinancing deadline will not wait: finance obtained too late is finance lost. Qualification acts on every stage of the timetable.
This time saving is not a convenience: in a buyout, it makes the buyer credible — finance scoped before the letter of intent shifts the balance of power with the seller. For a working capital need, it keeps cash-flow pressure from becoming visible. And for genuinely urgent needs, the club includes instant business loan providers able to assess a file within a few days.
08 · The other side of the table
Why the funders in our club look closely at our files
An introduction system only works over time if it creates value on both sides. Funders face exactly the mirror image of the business owner's problem: their teams spend a considerable share of their time turning down files that fall outside their criteria. Every incompatible request is pure assessment cost — analyst time consumed with no prospect of a deal.
Files presented by Collaboration Capital arrive with three properties that change how they are handled:
They fit the thesis. Size, ticket, instrument, situation, security: compatibility was checked before sending. The funder knows its assessment time has a real chance of leading to a deal — which is why it gives that time.
They are prepared. Accounts review done, adjustments documented, ratios calculated, confidentiality framework in place: the groundwork the funder would otherwise have to do is already done, in its format.
They are part of a relationship. An introducer who only presents relevant files builds up credibility from which every new file benefits. That is the very economics of the club: today's selectivity is tomorrow's responsiveness.
For funders, the club is therefore a source of deal flow qualified on their own criteria — files they are glad to receive because they match precisely what they want to deploy. This mirrors what we see on the M&A side in building quality deal flow: the value of a flow lies not in its volume but in its relevance rate. Funders who would like to join can get in touch through our partners area.
09 · The instruments
Every business finance instrument, from everyday needs to structured deals
Because the club covers every category of funder, it automatically covers every instrument — and above all their combinations, which are what make a financing plan robust.
Acquisition & succession
Acquisition debt, LBO, MBO, OBO
Acquisition holding company, leverage, ratio calibration. Structuring acquisition finance and understanding the ratios a banking syndicate analyses.
Acquisition & succession
Vendor financing and earn-out
Having the seller finance part of the buyout and bridging two valuations. Vendor financing · The earn-out guide.
Working capital
Factoring and reverse factoring
Financing working capital through receivables or payables. Factoring explained · Reverse factoring.
Working capital
Fast business loans
Getting an answer within a few days to seize an opportunity. Instant business loans.
Structured
SPV, fiducie and security
Ring-fencing the risk of a project or an acquisition in a dedicated vehicle. Financing a project with an SPV.
Equity
Equity and quasi-equity
Opening up the share capital, convertible bonds, structured shareholder loans. Raising funds and opening up your capital.
Special situations
Turnarounds and court-supervised acquisitions
Specialist funders accept the situations others exclude. Taking over a company in difficulty.
Family wealth
Succession and the Dutreil pact
Aligning the financing of the buyout with the tax treatment of the succession. The Dutreil pact, a French regime for family business transfers.
10 · Our positioning
Why entrust your search for business finance to Collaboration Capital
We are an independent advisory firm for acquisitions, disposals and financing, based in Marseille and working throughout France and internationally through a network covering more than 120 countries. The firm is registered with ORIAS, the French register of insurance, banking and finance intermediaries, under no. 25000696 as a broker in banking transactions and payment services (IOBSP).
No exclusivity required. You remain free to consult your own banking partners and to withdraw the file from us at any time.
Structural independence. No financial institution and no investment fund holds any of our capital. Funders are selected solely on how well their criteria match your need.
A qualified club, maintained daily. Not a directory: a living map of funders, their instruments, their tickets and their current appetites, in 120+ countries.
The complete chain, from diagnosis to completion. Accounts analysis, choice of instruments, selection of counterparties, preparation of the file in each one's format — the same rigour as on our acquisition and sale mandates.
AI and human expertise. The same tools that let us identify off-market targets power our monitoring of funders; analysing the files and managing relationships with counterparties remain the work of our teams.
11 · Resources
Guides and analysis to prepare your search for business finance
Our practical guides condense the essentials of a topic into a few pages: method, checklists, watch points and mistakes to avoid. They can be downloaded free of charge as PDFs from the guides page.
Guides directly useful when looking for finance
Financing · 18 pages
The factoring guide
Funding your cash flow by selling your customer invoices: how it works, costs and practical use cases.
Financing · 18 pages
The reverse factoring guide
Financing your suppliers and securing your supply chain without increasing your working capital requirement.
Financing · 15 pages
SPV financing
Setting up an SPV to finance an acquisition while ring-fencing the risk: structure, benefits, legal framework.
Financing · 11 pages
The vendor financing guide
How it works, benefits, risks and best practice for structuring secure financing.
Financing · 11 pages
Instant business loans
Comparing fast credit solutions and getting a financing decision in under 48 hours.
Acquisition · 14 pages
Taking over a company in difficulty
From diagnosis to takeover plan: buying at the right price without inheriting nasty surprises.
Our analysis of business finance
Understanding the context of a deal
Preparing an acquisition or a sale instead? Our company acquisition and business sale pages cover financing in the full context of the deal, and our document templates cover the legal side.
12 · Frequently asked questions
Your questions about our club of qualified funders
A structured network of funders — banks, private debt funds, mezzanine and unitranche funds, family offices, factors, leasing companies, finance platforms and guarantee bodies — present in the countries where we work. Each member is qualified on its real lending criteria: instruments offered, minimum and maximum revenue of the companies financed, ticket sizes, security required and situations accepted. A dedicated team updates these criteria daily.
Because every funder operates within a precise thesis that is rarely published: company size, ticket, instrument, security, sectors, situations. A file sent to a funder outside its thesis will be declined whatever its quality — after weeks have been lost. Qualification means a file is presented only to counterparties whose criteria match the need, which shortens assessment times and improves the quality of the discussions. It also protects the file's reputation, which a string of poorly targeted approaches would end up damaging.
Every financing need a company may have: acquisition debt and leveraged structures (LBO, MBO, OBO), working capital finance through factoring, reverse factoring and cash facilities, asset finance through leasing and sale and leaseback, private debt, mezzanine and unitranche, structured finance through an SPV or fiducie, fast business loans, as well as equity and quasi-equity.
A dedicated team updates the profiles of club members every day: sector appetite, funds available, ticket ranges, security requirements, situations accepted, people in post. A funder's criteria change constantly with its fundraising, its sector exposure and the credit cycle; a database that is not maintained becomes wrong within months. Every file presented also enriches the funder's profile: actual timescales, sticking points, quality of feedback.
Through a review of the statutory accounts for the last three financial years: balance sheet structure, normalised profitability, working capital requirement, remaining debt capacity and assets that can be used as collateral — receivables, inventory, property, shares. This review often reveals untapped sources the company had not seen: receivables that can be funded through factoring, a building that can be released through a sale and leaseback, shares that can be pledged in a structured deal. It is this review that determines the relevant instruments, and therefore which funders to approach.
No, and no serious intermediary can guarantee it: the decision always rests with the funder's credit committee. What qualification changes is the relevance of the counterparties approached and the quality of the file's preparation — two factors that directly affect the conditions under which a request is assessed.
Yes. Banks, funds, family offices and other finance providers that want to receive a flow of files qualified on their own criteria can get in touch through our partners area. Joining the club requires full qualification of their lending criteria and acceptance of its principle: receiving only compatible files, and giving reasoned feedback.
The information on this page describes our working method and practices observed in the business finance market. It does not constitute personalised advice, nor any promise as to rate, amount or timing, nor any commitment as to the outcome of a financing request: the decision always rests with the committees of the institutions approached. Each file is assessed on its own merits. Collaboration Capital is registered with ORIAS (the French register of insurance, banking and finance intermediaries) under no. 25000696 as a broker in banking transactions and payment services (IOBSP).
First conversation
Let's scope your business finance need
A confidential 30-minute first conversation with a partner to analyse your need, identify the relevant instruments and check which categories of funders in the club match your profile — with no commitment.
Reply within 24 business hours
Confidentiality — NDA on request
No exclusivity, no fixed fees
IOBSP broker (broker in banking transactions and payment services) registered with ORIAS under no. 25000696