Albany Community Together offers new financing tool for businesses
From staff reports
ALBANY — Albany Community Together (ACT!) has announced a new flexible financing product that enables business owners to repay based on cash flow. In partnership with Ned, the recently-launched technology business that powers the offering, ACT! will expand its ability to finance Georgia businesses rebuilding after the COVID-19 pandemic.
The new product comes after years of serving business owners with credit challenges who sought different financing options, beyond fixed-term loans. Where typical credit scores might instantly disqualify otherwise strong businesses, ACT! sought a new way forward.
ACT!’s revenue-based financing product aims to support those businesses’ short-term operating needs. Using Ned’s revenue-based qualification technology, ACT! will finance borrowers based on business performance, and instead of fixed payments with interest, business owners will repay with a set percentage of revenue either weekly or monthly.
ACT! President and CEO Thelma Johnson said the offering will be another step to support small businesses “in recovering, rebuilding and relaunching.”
“We invested in new capabilities to make sure local businesses have every opportunity to succeed,” Johnson said. “Flexible financing will help ACT! level the playing field and ramp up our support for business owners in hardest-hit communities.”
“I am pleased to be on the Board of an entity that works diligently to meet the financing needs of their community — devastating events of late have crippled an already challenged community and the implementation and delivery of this product will greatly enhance the comeback of those affected,” M. Scott Tomlinson, the board chair of ACT Inc., said.
Ned, a New York-based financial technology business, partnered with ACT! and built technology to support this program.
“ACT! is writing a new playbook for community development,” Dave Silverstein, Ned’s founder and CEO, said.
“We’re honored to work with the team to make sure Georgia business owners get the fair shot to grow.”
Existing southwest Georgia business owners who want to grow their business with flexible financing should contact ACT! at [email protected] or call (229) 420-4600.
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