Corporate financing for SMEs

Growth financing

Working Capital Financing

The financing of working capital, short-term investments, such as outstanding accounts receivables, and Inventory, are financed within the company. This type of financing is intended to provide you with flexible and daily availability of liquidity. Please contact us and find out more.

There are many possibilities for the different requirements: whether you want to save your cash flow with a short term guaranteed loan or whether you need funded loans in order to be able to adapt to the short-term market needs. For all eventualities, there are solutions that optimally meet your needs. Operating finance is often cheaper than a fixed-rate loan when the use changes. At first sight, this financing is the most expensive form of debt financing. Here, among other things, bank rating and credit information such as credit reform have a decisive impact on the level of the interest rate. Therefore, optimizations to the company rating offer great savings potential of the financing costs for your company. In the context of growth financing, balance sheet policy development is also crucial. We know all the decisive factors and show you new ways - always practice-oriented - a must for success!

The following operating financing is available as an alternative, among other things:

• Overdraft Protection
• Euribor-based funded loan
• Seasonal loan
• Guaranteed term loans
• Money market credit
• Discount credit
• Eurocredit
• Factoring

Benefits and use of working capital financing

• Liquidity savings with individual loan term
• Funded loans and guaranteed loans tailored to your needs – interest-optimized and liquidity-friendly
• Flexible and free availability within the agreed credit line
• Use of a discount

Funding and Guarantees

For more than 10 years, we have been showing small and large companies suitable funding for their company. There is always a program for a company, but not in all cases is the funding a saviour!

Allow us to guide and advice you. Because which funding is suitable and how it can be used successfully is one of our core competences. Funding loans can be an important to the financial structure through favorable prices with flexible repayment arrangements. With support loans, we provide you with access to favourable terms and public subsidies from the federal government, the Countries and the EU for your projects. Together, we optimize your individual financing concept.

Support will be given, for example, to investments, expansion and in particular, projects such as business start-ups, research and development, innovation, relocation, environmental improvements or investment in structurally weak areas.

Your advantages at a glance

• Interest-saving loans and government investment grants
• For investments in structurally weak areas, you will receive state investment allowances.
• safe calculation basis for fixed interest rates up to 20 years possible through state guarantees you can expand your credit margin
• For each of your projects, we develop precisely tailored financing solutions for you

We have already successfully supported the following funding for hundreds of companies

• Interest-free loans
• Lost grants (non-repayable grants)
• Exemption from liability to house banks
• Subsidised venture capital with tax-exempt shares for investors
• Banking and financing
• Energy and material efficiency programs for processes, products and capital goods
• Commercial real estate refurbishment and new construction with grants up to 18% (As of 2016)
• Venture Capital
• Seed financing
• Innovation loan with repayment grant (Baden-Württemberg only)

Equity Financing and Employee Participation

Equity financing offers companies alternative opportunities for corporate financing. Through our network of potential investors, project financing can be organized.

Equity financing includes all financing operations in which an entity receives additional equity from new or previous owners. It is understood, under certain conditions, as a strengthening of equity capital, which is why it is given great importance in the context of corporate financing. In addition to the expansion of the liability base, equity financing has a positive impact on the absorption of further debt capital. In the case of start-up, growth, restructuring and refinancing measures resulting from the departure of a shareholder, extended equity capital will also have a positive impact. The contractual arrangement depends on many individual needs of all parties and is to be planned professionally. We are primarily available to advise small and medium-sized enterprises on this process together with our network.

Advantages at a glance:

• Rating with your bank improves
• Other financing costs can be optimized
• Improvement of creditworthiness
• Flexible capital management

Employee participation

A further form of participation is the company's own employee. Employee participation programs strengthen employee identification with the company and increase their commitment and performance. This is the conclusion of a new study by the Faculty of Economics at the Georg-August-University Göttingen. Employee participation offers companies strategic advantages, such as employee motivation and retention. As required, silent and open holdings can be accompanied by Averas. This form of participation is becoming increasingly important for the raising of capital, because it is not only the advantages already mentioned but also a sign of trust for the entrepreneur and the company itself. Smaller companies in particular, in which employees have a good insight, testify to their employees with their participation and create loyalty. This recognition is an expression of a healthy corporate culture.

Lost grants

Lost subsidies are funding from the state that don’t need to be paid back (source: Schmidt-Futterer, Mietrecht/Streyl, 11th edition Munich 2013, BGB section 547 paragraph 13). Non-repayable or "lost" grants are used for both investment and innovation projects (up to 50% each) from different institutions. These are mostly public sponsors. But foundations and private institutions also offer lost grants, which is rarely the case for entrepreneurial projects.

There are various forms of grants which support a wide range of projects. In order to determine the appropriate funding, we will inform you about the types of grants for your project. We also accompany you in the application process – we are familiar with the formalities of the funding, which is why the chances of being approved are significantly increased for your company.

Major providers of grants

• The Ministry of Economic Affairs of the state of Baden Württemberg offers innovation vouchers for innovative founders and companies.
• The KfW Banking Group offers grants that you don’t have to pay back.
• Technology-open project funding for SMEs is particularly supported by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi). However, many other areas are also supported.
• The promotion of agriculture and rural development is the responsibility of the Agricultural Pension Bank.
• The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) has made a wide range of areas the focus of its funding.
• The Federal Office for Economic Affairs and Export Control (BAfA) promotes foreign trade, economy and energy on behalf of the federal government.

Wagniskapital Venture Capital

Venture capital is primarily capital for young and mostly very innovative companies that invest in companies with their own developments and already in existing mostly patented developments. Mostly risky projects with a high degree of innovation and potential are characteristic, and often they can offer little guarantees, which is why this form of financing is often the most common form of fundraising here. Venture capital funds often have one or more industry priorities in which they specialize. By contributing capital, the venture capital investor becomes a co-shareholder with all associated rights and obligations. However, venture capital investors do not usually acquire a majority stake in the company – venture capital companies deliberately insist that the start-ups can retain a majority stake in the company. In addition to capital, venture capital companies usually also provide sound industry knowledge and management expertise in the invested company.

The most important features for venture capital at a glance:

• Business idea: novel & innovative
• Market: promising and growing
• Customer Benefits: Clear Benefit and Benefit for the Customer 
• Team: Venture capital companies invest in people, not companies!

The minimum participation of venture capital funds is usually approximately 100,000 to 250,000 euros. We have many years of experience in processing potential investors and have different contacts between different investor groups and fund companies.

Investor acquisition

Do you already have the right investor? Many good projects and start-ups need sufficient liquidity for success – and until the goals are achieved. Until then, as an entrepreneur, you must be able to maintain liquidity and ensure your ability to provide capital service. For a variety of reasons, the Bank is not always willing to bear the risk on its own if its equity is insufficient. Here, an investor can become a valuable addition.

The right investor!

So who is the right investor for my project? Is it the accelerator, incubator, company builder, business angel or perhaps venture capital? If you are looking for an investor, you have as many points of contact as rarely before. At the same time, this flood can make it difficult to find the right partner or investor. An investor enters into a "purpose healike". It is therefore of great importance to weigh up the advantages and disadvantages in a sound manner. There is no one-size-fits-all solution, but individual events and individual requirements and wishes must always be reconciled. However, in general, a simple analysis can be used to define which type of investor is eligible for which company:

• the investor's commitment
• the amount of the financing
• and the time when the capital is needed.

The time at which the capital is needed shows the associated risk. As a general rule, the later in the growth process the company is, the higher the financial resources required, so that another form of financing becomes attractive. In particular, investors also pay higher valuations at later times, because the risk of starting up has already been reduced by the insights and experience gained. The question of the time phase in which the company is located is a decisive factor in the process of generating investor capital.

We are happy to assist you in this sensitive process in finding a suitable investor for your project.