When you bootstrap a growing SaaS company for a long time, it’s usually not wildly profitable.
You’re on the edge of cash-flow breakeven because there is always a reasonable investment to grow faster or keep up.
Living at breakeven can help you focus, but it still doesn’t feel safe when you’re gripping so tightly.
Yet you still wouldn’t consider selling some of your precious equity to investors for some extra funding.
You’ve worked too hard to add an outside investor to your cap table.
Tanner Kovacevich of Lighter Capital provides practical, non-dilutive financing for bootstrapped and lightly funded SaaS founders.
That’s practical debt in small chunks, not expensive equity funding.
Since 2010, Lighter Capital has funded hundreds of recurring-revenue software companies that want growth capital without giving up ownership or board control.
Their simple debt financing fits companies with $1M–$5M ARR that are growing steadily but don’t want venture capital.
This week on the podcast, Tanner explains their typical loan structures, underwriting factors like churn and revenue trends, and why capital-efficient SaaS companies are often better candidates than “grow-at-all-costs” startups.
Our conversation focuses on how certain practical founders can use capital strategically—accelerating growth while preserving control and optionality.
There are many practical reasons that founders raise a small amount of SaaS debt to go a little faster, as Tanner explains:
“Often we fund founders who just want to have a little more cash on hand and not have to manage cash so closely. What does that open up for the founder’s mindset alone? To just have some extra cash on hand, to go out and hire whoever they want, an account executive, or an SDR. Because a lot of it can be psychological.
“It’s not only the grand initiatives; it can just be the ability to breathe, extend your runway to look ahead. Maybe you want to offload a couple of things you’re working on as the CEO, like acting as an accountant when you’re the strategic CEO and trying to manage sales day-to-day.
“Lighter Capital provides non-dilutive debt financing for B2B SaaS companies, but we also work with other recurring revenue types of model technology companies. With Lighter, there are no warrants on our loan, no personal guarantees that the founder has to place, and minimal financial covenants on it.”
Tanner shares several examples of founders who used debt instead of equity to retain ownership and build long-term value.
Avoiding early dilution can preserve tens of millions of dollars in founder equity in successful outcomes.
Check out this informative episode with Tanner Kovacevich on the Practical Founders Podcast.
