Counterparties
Every broker claims a network. Almost none will describe it.
"Over 100 lenders" is a number you cannot check and that tells you nothing about whether any of them wants your file. What is worth knowing is the shape of the market: who the categories of capital provider actually are, what each one takes, how each prices, and what each will never do. This page is that map. Read it and you will be able to tell, in 1 conversation, whether the person quoting you knows where your file belongs.
Last reviewed September 18, 2026.
The map
9 categories, in rough order of cost.
Cheapest capital sits at the top and hardest to qualify for with it. The work of placement is finding the highest line on this list that your file can actually reach, which is the opposite of what happens when a file is blasted to everyone at once.
Commercial banks and credit unions
The cheapest money in the market and the narrowest box. They want 2 or more years of profitable operating history, documented debt service coverage, clean personal credit, and usually a deposit relationship. They move in committee time, measured in weeks. They decline far more than they approve at the small end, and a decline is rarely explained in detail. If your file clears a bank, nothing on this page beats it.
SBA lenders
Banks and non bank lenders operating under federal guarantee programs, which lets them take files a conventional bank cannot. Longer terms, lower payments, and the most paperwork of anything on this list, with closings measured in 30 to 90 days. Strong fit for acquisition, real estate and long horizon expansion, poor fit for anything urgent.
Private credit funds and direct lenders
Institutional capital lending directly to companies, usually from $1,000,000 upward and more typically from $5,000,000. They price above banks and underwrite on adjusted earnings, leverage and covenant headroom rather than on collateral alone. They will do things a bank cannot: unitranche structures, acquisition and recapitalization financing, facilities for companies a bank has just declined. They expect quarterly reporting and they negotiate hard on guarantees, which is exactly where representation earns its fee.
Asset based lenders
They lend against what you own, sized to a borrowing base of receivables and inventory, sometimes equipment and real estate. Cheaper than unsecured non bank money, with more reporting: borrowing base certificates, field exams, appraisals. Good fit for a business with a strong balance sheet and weak earnings, which is precisely the file a cash flow lender declines.
Factors
They buy invoices rather than lending against the company, so they underwrite your customers instead of you. That single fact makes factoring reachable for young, thin or fast growing businesses that no lender will touch. Capacity grows with sales automatically. Specialist factors exist for freight, staffing, construction and government receivables, and the differences between them are substantial.
Equipment finance companies and lessors
They finance a specific titled asset and take it as collateral, which lets them approve credits a general lender will not, because the recovery is known. Captive programs run by manufacturers are usually the cheapest source for new equipment; independents take the used, the private party sale and the off tier credit. Terms run 1 to 10 years against the asset's life.
Non bank term lenders
Technology driven lenders making amortizing loans and revolving lines to small businesses, underwriting principally on bank deposit data. Faster and more expensive than a bank, far cheaper than an advance, and the category most owners never discover because they go straight from a bank decline to whoever called them that week. For a business with 1 or 2 years of history and real deposits, this is usually the right line on this list.
Revenue based funders
The merchant cash advance market: purchase of future receivables at a factor rate, remitted daily or weekly, funded in 1 to 3 days. Broad appetite, minimal documentation, and the highest cost of anything here once measured properly. Within the category there is a real distinction between first position funders, who price on the business, and second and third position funders, who price on the fact that someone is already debiting the same account. The factor rate converter exists for this line of the map.
Equity and institutional capital
Private equity, venture, family offices and independent sponsors. Not debt, no repayment, and the cost is ownership rather than interest. Relevant when the plan needs capital that no cash flow can service, and irrelevant to almost every working capital conversation, despite how often it is raised in one.
How a file is routed
Appetite first, then a short list.
Not a broadcast.
A file is read before it is sent anywhere: what the deposits show, what is already debiting the account, what the business owns free and clear, time in business, and the use of funds. That determines which categories above are even in range. Within a category, counterparties differ enormously on industry, geography, position, ticket size and credit tier, so the list narrows again to the ones with demonstrated appetite for a file of this shape. You see the list before it goes out, and you approve it.
What this avoids is the standard practice: submitting everywhere at once. That produces a wave of hard inquiries, a week of calls from people you never contacted, and counterparties who assume everyone else has already declined you. It also destroys the leverage that competition is supposed to create, because a funder who knows the file is everywhere prices it as a commodity.
Citadel Ridge is not a lender and does not make credit decisions. It does not lend its own money, does not fund or participate in any facility, and has no ownership interest in any counterparty. It is paid by the counterparty at funding, and what it is paid on your transaction is disclosed to you in writing before you sign. Those mechanics, including the conflict that arises because commission on revenue based paper commonly rises with the factor rate, are set out on the how we get paid page.
Questions
What to ask anyone quoting you.
Which category is my file going to, and why that one?
A reasonable answer names the category and the reason from your own numbers. An unreasonable answer names a product before anyone has read a statement. If the first conversation ends with a factor rate and nobody has asked what you already carry, you are being sold, not placed.
How many counterparties will see this, and do I approve the list?
You should approve the list. A file that goes to 30 places at once is worth less than a file that goes to 4 that want it, and the inquiries follow you afterwards.
Is there a cheaper line on the map that I do not qualify for yet, and what would it take?
This is the question that separates an advisor from a salesperson. Often the answer is a documented quarter, a cleaned up debt schedule, or a receivables aging that nobody has produced. Sometimes it is 6 months of discipline. It is almost never nothing.
Do you have any ownership or funding interest in the counterparty?
Ask it. Some shops broker to affiliates they own, which is legal and materially changes what the recommendation is worth. Citadel Ridge has none.
What will you be paid, and will you put it in writing before I sign?
The answer should be a number and a yes. Anything else tells you what you need to know.
Start with the file
A straight read within 2 business days.
Send the basics through the intake form: what the file supports, what is missing, and the next step if there is one. If we are not the right desk for it, we say so.