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Technology and SaaS businesses often have asset-light balance sheets that traditional lenders struggle to price correctly. We arrange working capital facilities, revenue-based finance, and growth funding structured around recurring revenue, ARR, and IP value rather than physical collateral. Alasdair's banking background means he knows how to present tech businesses in a way that unlocks funding most brokers can't access.
Technology and SaaS businesses break the traditional lending model because the value sits in code, contracts and recurring revenue, not tangible security. Australian founders have three main non-dilutive levers. The R&D Tax Incentive returns a 43.5% refundable offset for companies under $20m turnover, and specialist lenders will advance against the expected refund during the year rather than making founders wait for lodgement. Recurring-revenue and venture-debt lenders size facilities off annual recurring revenue, net revenue retention, churn and burn, typically at a multiple of monthly recurring revenue for venture-backed companies with 12 or more months of runway.
Banks, by contrast, usually only lend with real security, so early-stage founders face broad company debentures, IP mortgages or personal guarantees. Metrics matter more than the profit and loss statement, including gross margin, CAC payback, the magic number, logo and revenue retention, and the concentration of the contract base. Structural supports such as ESIC concessions, ESVCLPs and grant programs sit alongside debt in the capital stack. Contract terms, including annual prepaid versus monthly billing, cancellation rights and auto-renewal, directly change how much a lender will advance. We translate the metrics into a credit story lenders trust, package the ARR schedule, cohort data and cap table, and tender across R&D-advance providers, recurring-revenue lenders, venture-debt funds and the banks, comparing effective cost, warrants or fees, covenants such as an ARR or liquidity floor, and how each behaves if a quarter misses plan.
Alasdair is a former banker and Executive Manager at both Westpac and CBA, bringing decades of senior banking experience to every commercial deal. He understands exactly how lenders assess risk, structure facilities, and price commercial debt, and he uses that insider knowledge to negotiate outcomes that most brokers simply can't access. If you're looking for an adviser who has run the bank's side of the table, you've found him.