Key Takeaways
- SaaS businesses with recurring MRR are highly bankable regardless of visa status
- Revenue-based financing is purpose-built for subscription software businesses
- VC-alternative for L-1 founders who want growth capital without equity dilution
- SBA closed to L-1 holders — Bankable provides direct SaaS growth capital
- Decisions in 48 hours, $100K to $5M based on ARR
Revenue-based financing was invented for software businesses. The model — advance capital against future revenue, repay as a percentage of monthly receipts — maps perfectly to SaaS: predictable MRR, low churn, high net revenue retention. The innovation is applying this model to L-1 founders who have built real SaaS businesses but are excluded from every other growth capital channel.
L-1 software founders are a large and growing population. Many are technical specialists — L-1B holders with proprietary knowledge of specific software stacks, database architectures, or industry-specific platforms — who built a product while employed and eventually launched it as a separate business entity. Others are L-1A executives who established US subsidiaries specifically to develop software products for the US market, using their multinational company's existing technology as a starting point.
A SaaS company with $50K MRR ($600K ARR), growing 15% month-over-month, with 92% net revenue retention, is an exceptional business by any standard. Bankable funds it. Your visa status is not the question — your MRR growth rate is.
SaaS Capital Use Cases for L-1 Holders
- Sales and marketing expansion: Customer acquisition in SaaS is front-loaded — capital funds the CAC while customer LTV accumulates over time
- Engineering team growth: Adding engineering capacity to accelerate product roadmap and reduce technical debt
- Customer success infrastructure: CS teams, onboarding programs, and support infrastructure that improve retention
- Infrastructure scaling: AWS, GCP, or Azure costs that scale with customer growth but must be funded before customer MRR arrives
- Integration development: Building marketplace integrations (Salesforce, HubSpot, Slack) that expand addressable market
Explore tech startup funding for L-1 holders or check your score.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. L-1 holders operating SaaS businesses with documented MRR qualify for Bankable revenue-based financing. We evaluate MRR, churn rate, and growth trend. No green card required.
We advance capital based on your MRR and repay as a fixed percentage of monthly revenue (typically 5-20% of monthly receipts) until the advance plus a capital fee is repaid. No equity dilution, no fixed monthly payment regardless of revenue.
Bankable typically requires a minimum of $15K-$20K MRR ($180K-$240K ARR) for initial financing. Higher MRR unlocks proportionally larger advances. We also evaluate MRR trend — growing businesses at $10K MRR may qualify.
This depends on your goals. Revenue-based financing does not dilute your ownership and does not require board seats or investor approval for business decisions. If you are targeting an acquisition or IPO and need a branded investor, VC may be better. For operational growth capital, RBF is typically superior.
Yes. Annual contracts create upfront cash but also create deferred revenue on your books. Bankable evaluates your total contracted recurring revenue (ARR) adjusted for churn, not just your accounting treatment of deferred revenue.
Negative churn (net revenue retention above 100%) is the strongest possible signal for RBF. A SaaS company expanding revenue from existing customers faster than it loses customers from churn will qualify for the highest advance multiples.
Yes. Acquiring a complementary SaaS product or plugin that expands your addressable market is a legitimate use of growth capital. We evaluate the acquisition target's revenue and integration plan.
Revenue-based repayments flex proportionally with your revenue — lower revenue means lower payments. There is no fixed payment that creates a cash crisis. If revenue declines substantially, we work with you to restructure terms.