We’re operators who became lenders
Small business is the American Dream, and we’re fighting to keep it fundable. BuildUp Capital is a private lender built by people who have built, bought, run, and sold businesses — lending since 1993 — so we read a deal the way an owner does, and we put our own money in every loan.
Our story
The American Dream wasn’t built in boardrooms — it was built by small business owners. When banks walked away from them, we didn’t. BuildUp Capital exists to fight for the businesses that built this country, with honest capital and skin in the game.
We’re the disciplined middle path between the bank that says “not yet” and the products that say “yes” before anyone has read the deal: private-capital speed, bank-grade underwriting, operator judgment, and our own capital alongside our capital partners’ in every loan.
None of that is a slogan about banks being villains. It’s a twenty-five-year structural shift you can read in the public data — half the country’s banks are gone, the small business loan was de-prioritised for a generation, and the cheapest money became the hardest to get. Read the sourced version on our homepage
Built by operators
Experience you can underwrite against
We’ve sat in your seat
Our investment team has built, run, bought, and sold businesses across the industries we lend into — operator experience we underwrite with, not just talk about.
Deep experience for hard moments
Our co-founder and Chief Investment Officer, Donna Cangelosi, is a court-appointed federal trustee and one of the nation’s specialists in complex real estate workouts.
We succeed only when you do
A loan-to-own lender profits when you fail. Our model is the opposite — our own capital is in every deal, and we plan your exit on day one.
What we believe
Five values, one direction
Discipline before yield
Rule one of investing: don’t lose money. We only lend against assets we’d be comfortable owning.
Skin in the game
We invest at least 10% of our own capital in every loan we make.
Plain dealing
We state our rate, our fees, and your terms in the term sheet before you sign — and we tell you which third-party closing costs to expect.
Operator judgment
We read a deal as a business plan, not just a collateral file.
Win-win-win
The model only works when it works for the borrower, the capital partner, and us.
“I learned underwriting from the inside of one of the largest private-lending collapses in the country. That’s why we plan the exit before we ever fund a loan — not after something goes wrong.”
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