An Insider's Guide To Raising Capital

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

Financial experts weigh in on how to raise capital for software companies.

Nearly 150 channel executives gathered to address the topics of raising capital, partnering, and marketing at the inaugural ISV IQ Live! Conference held February 24 in Santa Ana, CA. One panel, An Insider’s Guide To Raising Capital” featured four financial industry experts who shared their insights on how to raise capital for software companies.

Panelists included Chris Hill, Regional Director of Commercial Finance at Bridge Bank; Marc Cole, CFO of Super G Funding and SaaS Funding; Ken Hubbard, President at Private Capital Network; and Anthony Guagliano, Managing Director of M&A at The Gores Group. The panel was moderated by Business Solutions President Jim Roddy.

Hill started by explaining that Bridge Bank sees all types of software companies as a good fit for their investment, saying, “We like to have a good, solid management team. We like to see their vision of the future and make sure there’s sustainability in the model. It’s very hard to do a loan to a company that’s not sustainable as we need to understand your investors, your threshold, and when you’re going to hit profitability. Also, if you’re at profitability, how sustainable is it?”

Cole added, “In terms of software, we love recurring revenue businesses. That’s the hallmark of what Super G does, and so we started Software-as-a-Service funding about two years ago” and have brought it to all types of software.