After reaching $10,000+ Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) bootstrapped founders are faced with a difficult decision: continue to grow at their own pace (preferable but slow) or accelerate growth by taking money from VCs (fast but expensive).

Companies should be able to Scale without losing control.

This belief informs our business practices. Corl does not take equity, board seats or personal guarantees. We don’t take big payouts during a down month or affect internal operations. Businesses deserve the opportunity to grow sustainably and organically. Corl’s unique business model and approach is generating interest from all types of business owners so we wanted to shed light on the types of businesses we fund.

We focus on Technology startups; namely SaaS and subscription based businesses. These markets are most able to upsell to current customers and replicate success as they grow yet remain under-served by mainstream finance. Less than 1% of all tech startups are funded by angel investors and VCs.

Corl makes financing and investing in tech companies an intuitive process and our efficiency applies to the business applicants as well. The application process is entirely online and can be completed within minutes. Applicants will need to provide accounting information but, fortunately, we do not need any of the following:

A long business plan. It’s a waste of everyone’s time. A personal guarantee. Unlike banks and alternative lenders, we’re investing in the business and its leadership, not the value of your personal assets. Audited financial statements. While this is a good idea, we don’t need them. Instead we request read-only access to your accounting system. A billion-dollar market opportunity. This is great if you plan to raise money through angel investors or VCs, but mostly we check if you have a real opportunity to grow once you secure our revenue based financing investment.

When examining investment opportunities, businesses should meet the following criteria — at least $10,000 in consistent MRR with gross margins of 30% or higher. We also look for low customer churn rates and long customer lifetimes. Corl does not require a business to be profitable but we do require a clear path to profitability with a reasonable timeline and cash burn.

If you need capital to get out of a sticky situation and/or to extend your runway, that is a deal breaker. Our revenue-based financing system is best used for operations that aid growth ie. hiring, marketing initiatives, product development, etc.

At Corl, investor success depends entirely on your growth and success; by syncing our collective interests, you acquire tens of thousands of investors who want to see you win. It’s your company, let’s accelerate growth — on your terms.

The terms above are not exhaustive. If you are interested in funding and meet most of the criteria or have questions, send us a message via help.corl.io