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We’ve noticed a growing number of business aggregator portals lately. It’s not that aggregating is new, just that there seems to be increasing focus on B2B rather than the more traditional B2C aggregators, like LendingTree.com.
Here’s a couple we think are interesting:
Company.com a vendor marketplace providing personalized vendor comparisons, editorial reviews, Company.com recommendations and, in the future, customer ratings and savings calculators. Vendor participants hail from 50 specific service categories most widely used by small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs), including lead generation, human resources outsourcing and business loans.
Solutions Center (for Peachtree Accounting Business Analytics users) In addition to comparative industry benchmarks and financial analytics, Peachtree small business customers have seamless access to supplementary financial perspectives and services that can help them make critical decisions and implement solutions.
iBank.com enables companies of all sizes to store and organize their business data into a secure electronic “vault” for the purpose of arranging financing to help them grow their business and reduce their costs. The customer can then provide access to this vault to selected lenders, credit rating agencies, brokers and other parties as necessary, thereby eliminating the inefficiencies and costs of typical paper-based transactions.
Intuitworkplace a single location to find and try business applications that work with QuickBooks and with each other. By logging in, you can easily access applications, manage settings and find more applications.
Are these aggregators somewhere you would go to find a solution to a common SMB challenge like financing growth?
You may have seen Ftrans and one of our client’s featured in the Wall Street Journal article, “Asset-Based Lending Grows in Popularity.” We’re happy to be associated with such success stories as Seth Chapman and Weezabi and know that many other businesses are benefiting from these types of services as the stigma of asset lending wears off (and the traditional credit markets remain dry). Asset based lending is no longer viewed as “lending of last resort.” As a matter of fact, it is increasingly becoming a preferred form of financing. As indicated in the article, asset based lending (excluding mortgages) grew by 8.3% in 2008
The data supports this trend. According to the FDIC, traditional, commercial lending is DOWN 14% Sept. 2009 over September 2008. Thus, we have every expectation to believe that asset lending will have grown significantly in 2009. When it comes to providing growth and working capital to small and medium businesses, asset based lending is carrying the day.
The moral of the story is two fold (1) Consider tapping your assets such as receivables for access to capital and (2)….. If you need a whole buch of creatively designed t-shirts, call Seth — He’ll take care of you.
