Hi everyone
I have a handful of possible acquisition opportunities in Ireland. I'm wondering if anyone has experience of raising debt finance there for smaller deals (sub-€500k EBITDA)?
Aside from invoice finance and asset finance, is anyone aware of
1) Cash-flow lenders who are happy funding small deals
2) Government-backed loans (like GGS in UK), which don't require a director's personal guarantee
3) Other unsecured loan that could be suitable?
Any tips greatly appreciated
Debt funding in Ireland?
by a searcher from University College London, University of London
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Connecting with the local enterprise office should be helpful - you can call a local office directly and they'll at least give you a decent start point re unsecured debt options. Are you planning to contribute capital?
Isme swoop have an estimate tool that seems promising - https://isme.ie/finance-finder/
Fintech partners like financefair, grid, swoop, wayflyer worth a look - what industry Segments are you targeting? Some fintech have solutions for LBOs which could be useful. There's revenue based financing options but you'd likely only get about 20% of your 12 months looking forward projection on revenue from them - it would need to be secured in some way. If the target Co puts in assets into a JV structure to take in the monies/debt and run your growth plan together from there, that could be an option - Skin in the game money from you, debt and some angels could be a better option (30 %,debt 10% you, 60% angels).
Pillar banks could help if you have a relationship - aib, boi, ptsb.
Some UK / ireland operating folks worth a look - duke capital come to mind, not sure if they lend at that level when uncollateralised.
The EIIS scheme could be a source of unsecured finance - our tax year ends in the next couple of weeks so probably a bit late to catch EIIS opportunities - there will be some high earners who have maxxed out other tax credit investment incentives and would be own to riskier options - you'd probably list on spark / Republic crowd funding to go this route and promote the opportunity.
happy to connect and trade notes on this - based in Dublin, looking for similar finance solutions, especially at that €1m -€2m acquisition level.