LightSpeed Capital Has Over $100M in MCAs on Balance Sheet

LightSpeed Capital, the MCA division of LightSpeed Commerce, has over $100M in merchant cash advances on its balance sheet, according to the company’s latest quarterly earnings report. The POS company reported that LightSpeed Capital’s revenue grew 34% year-over-year.

The company’s balance-sheet-driven approach has made them relatively conservative and cautious with originations growth. For example, in the preceding quarter, Lightspeed CFO Asha Bakshani said “There is a lot of opportunity. We can move faster if we wanted to. When we look at our peers, for example, they are giving out 1% of their [Gross Transaction Volume] in merchant cash advance. Lightspeed is well below that. 1% of our GTV would be almost $1 billion in merchant cash advance. So when we think about the opportunity, it’s there. It’s just that in this macro, we want to move carefully on a product like Capital. Like I mentioned earlier, our default rates are in the very low single digits, and we want to keep it there.”