Idea Financial Upsizes its Credit Facility to $112M

In just eighteen months since Idea Financial closed on an $84M warehouse facility with the Specialty Finance Division of Synovus Bank and Hudson Cove Capital Management, the company has gotten it upsized to $112M and the term extended by another 3 years. Idea Financial provides small businesses with lines of credit while its sister company LevelEsq finances the cost of lawsuits mostly undertaken by lawyers that work on contingency.

Co-founders Larry Bassuk and Justin Leto say that the upsizing news is “a testament to our discipline and our focus on risk management.”

The company has around 50 employees, less than what might be expected, but Bassuk and Leto say that technology has helped make tremendous efficiency possible while emphasizing that they have a human underwriting team that reviews every single loan before it goes out.

Jayan Krishnan, Managing Director of Synovus Bank, said that they were “very happy to provide them with the growth capital they need.” Synovus is the senior debt in the arrangement. Krishnan said that they love to work with companies that are thoughtful, mindful, and conservative and that Idea fit that criteria.

Fred Wang, a Co-Founder and Partner at Hudson Cove, said his firm is pretty selective on mezzanine within the small business lending asset class but that Idea’s performance has been very strong and consistent. “We’ve gotten a very good feel for them as a management team,” Wang said.

Both Synovus and Hudson Cove are well-versed in the commercial finance space.

“We’re obviously growing and they’re happing to be growing with us,” said the two founders of Idea Financial. “We run our company risk management first and sales second.”

Sean Murray is the President and Chief Editor of deBanked and the founder of the Broker Fair Conference. Connect with me on LinkedIn or follow me on twitter. You can view all future deBanked events here.