For the past 20 years, Rapid Finance has been supporting the growth of small businesses by giving those companies access to the working capital they need to expand and achieve their goals. The Bethesda, MD.-based company offers an array of financing solutions, including small business loans, bridge loans, invoice factoring, merchant cash advances and lines of credit, with funding provided both by Rapid’s own balance sheet as well as its partner lenders.
Last year, Rapid Finance added to these offerings with the launch of a prepaid card that provides small businesses line of credit customers with quick and flexible access to funds. A collaboration with Galileo Financial Technologies, the Rapid Access Card is issued by SoFi Bank, with program management provided by Galileo. The card can be used anywhere Mastercard is accepted, making it easy for small business owners to manage their cash flow and capitalize on market opportunities.
Rapid Finance Taps SoFi and Galileo to Enable Small Business Financing
Galileo recently spoke with Rapid Finance Head of Products Preethi Janardhanan about how the Rapid Access Card is helping further the company’s goal of empowering small businesses with flexible and accessible financial solutions.
Mission: “Our mission is simple: It is to enable small businesses to grow, to thrive and go big,” said Janardhanan. “We really understand small businesses. We know that their demands and their need for growth is constantly changing and evolving. So they need fast solutions, they need flexible solutions. They need solutions that will allow them to adapt to their needs as they change and scale.”
Founding: Rapid Finance was founded in 2005 by Jeremy Brown, who led the company as CEO until 2015 and currently serves as Executive Chairman. Brown’s prior experience managing small and midsize businesses gave him a keen understanding of SMBs’ financing needs–insight he leveraged to ensure Rapid Finance’s offerings were designed to effectively fulfill those needs.
What Galileo Does for Them: “When Rapid started looking at doing a card program for our line of credit, we looked at Galileo to partner with, and at that time the SoFi acquisition of Galileo had just happened, so we thought that was fantastic,” Janardhanan said. “It's been fantastic to work with the team at Galileo and SoFi.”
The Road Ahead: Along with continuing to grow its small business lending programs, Rapid is at work developing a line of enterprise solutions, building products designed for use by other small business financing providers.
“One product we are very excited about is an AI-driven fraud prevention solution called Lynx. It allows enterprises to unlock the value of their own data and find relationships and patterns,” Janardhanan explained.
“Overall, the way we look at this is we've disaggregated the whole lending value chain. So it's true lending as a service; we're building a connected ecosystem, whether it is for enterprises or small businesses,” the Rapid product head noted. “Whether it’s doing the lending ourselves or empowering others that are doing the lending or working with small businesses, it helps us achieve our goal of helping small businesses grow.”
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