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The best startup business loans should be available to new businesses, have reasonable borrower requirements, and have competitive interest rates and terms.
WRITTEN & RESEARCHED BY
Editor & Senior Staff Writer
Last updated onUpdated
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Startups need capital to get off the ground, but the best small business loans often require a company to have been in business for at least two years to qualify for funding.
Nevertheless, it is still possible to get startup business loans with reasonable terms, although it may take a little more research.
In this post, we’ll look at the best startup business loans from lenders who work with new businesses.
Learn More About Our Top Picks
| Company | Best For | Next StepsBest For |
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Upstart
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Accion
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Fundable
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BusinessLoans.com
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Discover Personal Loans
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| Show More Options | ||
LendingClub Personal Loans
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| Show Fewer Options |
Read more below to learn why we chose these options.
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Table of Contents
The best startup business loans should be available to new businesses and should have reasonable borrower requirements and competitive interest rates. Generally speaking, they should also have longer repayment terms so as not to be too big a burden on a new business owner’s finances.
Here are our picks for the best startup business loans.
| Funding Type | Max Borrowing Amount | APR | Repayment Terms | Credit Score | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Upstart | Term loans | $50,000 | Starts at 7.4% | 3 or 5 years | N/A |
| Accion | Term loans | $250,000 | Starts at 8.49% | 12 - 60 months | 600 |
| Fundable | Crowdfunded loans | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| BusinessLoans.com | Term loans, STLs, MCAs, LOCs | $3 million | Undisclosed | 3 months - 5 years | N/A |
| Discover Personal Loans | Personal loans | $40,000 | Starts at 7.99% | 3 - 7 years | 660 |
| LendingClub Personal Loans | Personal loans | $40,000 | Starts at 8.98% | 2 - 5 years | N/A |
Pros
Cons
Upstart serves a market that most lenders aren’t chomping at the bit to lend to: young adults who are starting a business. As such, Upstart doesn’t weigh credit history as heavily as many of its competitors. Instead, its underwriting process focuses on education, credentials, and work experience to make lending decisions.
Pros
Cons
Accion is focused on funding businesses owned by underserved demographics, including women, minorities, and foreign-born business owners. Not only that, but it offers excellent rates and terms to those borrowers.
While its geographical footprint is limited, Accion Opportunity Fund is a great resource for entrepreneurs who can access it.
Pros
Cons
Entrepreneurs who are skilled at promotion can try their hand at crowdfunding their business. In that regard, Fundable is more business-focused than most other crowdfunding platforms, with the option to launch either a rewards-based campaign or an equity-based campaign.
Fundable offers self-managed campaigns, or you can get assistance through a guided fundraising campaign.
Pros
Cons
BusinessLoans.com is a convenient and versatile loan aggregator. When you apply, your application will be matched with one or more of BusinessLoans.com's partnered lenders. It’s a good way to cover a lot of ground with minimal effort.
While the company prefers applicants who have been in business for at least 6 months and have $100,000/year in revenue, it will still try to place customers who don’t hit those benchmarks.
Get Started With BusinessLoans.com
Pros
Cons
Though originally conceived as a lower-cost way to pay down debt, Discover’s personal loans are a cost-effective way to borrow small amounts of money for a variety of purposes, including funding a business startup.
The borrower qualifications are on the high side, but successful applicants will get good rates, fast approval, and no additional fees.
Get Started With Discover Personal Loans
Pros
Cons
While LendingClub does deal in business loans, startups are more likely to qualify for a personal loan, which they can then use for business purposes.
LendingClub isn’t the cheapest out there, but its lenient borrower requirements and broad availability make it a good fallback option if you’ve had a hard time qualifying elsewhere. LendingClub also reports on-time payments to credit agencies, making it a good option for building credit.
Get Started With LendingClub Personal Loans
We spend hours researching and evaluating each business loan and funding product that we review at Merchant Maverick, placing special emphasis on key characteristics to generate our ratings.
When rating lenders and funding providers, we use a 31-point rubric that looks at rates and fees, services, eligibility requirements, application, sales and advertising transparency, customer service, and user reviews. We weigh each section differently to calculate the total star rating. This rubric is applied to traditional term loans, as well as short-term loans, start-up loans, lines of credit, online lending products, merchant cash advances, and equipment financing products.
Each section is further broken down into granular, weighted subsections, in which we examine specific attributes like terms lengths, conditions of repayment, credit score and revenue requirements, ease of application, length of time to funding, the ethics involved in promoting the lending product, customer support, and the overall reputation of the lender or funding provider.
Read more about how we rate small business lenders.
The lenders we selected offer a few different types of business loans. These include:
The best startup loan for your business idea may not necessarily be the best startup loan for someone else’s. You’ll want to keep in mind the following factors when you’re looking:
With all of these elements in mind, you’ll be able to pinpoint the best startup business loan for your needs.
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Our expert reviewers found BusinessLoans.com to have a quick and easy application process alongside excellent support and guidance for borrowers.
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The vendors that appear on this list were chosen by subject matter experts on the basis of product quality, wide usage and availability, and positive reputation.
Merchant Maverick’s ratings are editorial in nature, and are not aggregated from user reviews. Each staff reviewer at Merchant Maverick is a subject matter expert with experience researching, testing, and evaluating small business software and services. The rating of this company or service is based on the author’s expert opinion and analysis of the product, and assessed and seconded by another subject matter expert on staff before publication. Merchant Maverick’s ratings are not influenced by affiliate partnerships.
Our unbiased reviews and content are supported in part by affiliate partnerships, and we adhere to strict guidelines to preserve editorial integrity. The editorial content on this page is not provided by any of the companies mentioned and has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone.
Our expert reviewers found BusinessLoans.com to have a quick and easy application process alongside excellent support and guidance for borrowers.
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