Interested in learning more about options to raise capital for an acquisition where the selling business is one of the following (not exhaustive list):

- Veteran-owned
- Woman-owned
- Minority-owned

And they have contracts that are predicated on that affiliation. I myself am a veteran but am sure other searchers out there have run into this problem with other opportunities, especially in the government contracting world.

I've run into this situation now a few times:

Great business that is veteran-owned and has contracts that are dependent on the company maintaining the veteran-owned status (defined as 51%+ ownership by a veteran or group of veterans) and so they need to sell to a veteran. I've come across some targets that would be a $20 mm+ purchase price and so the $5 mm limit on an SBA loan wouldn't be enough for a single searcher to acquire the business and maintain the 51% ownership requirement.

Options I can think of:
- Non-SBA lenders, which doesn't sound great in this interest rate environment
- Pooling a group of investors who meet the criteria (in this case, veterans)

Curious if anyone else has come across this dilemma and seen creative ways to make it happen.