Business funding at six months: what's actually available

Here is what the six-to-twenty-four-month window actually looks like from the underwriting side.

Why two years is the wall at banks

Banks apply time in business as a mechanical filter, not a judgement. Under two years is an automatic decline at most institutions regardless of how the business is performing. A company doing $80,000 a month for fourteen months fails the same test as one doing $8,000.

The reason is portfolio statistics rather than anything about you. Business failure rates are concentrated in the first two years, so banks price that out by excluding the whole cohort.

Revenue-based funders do not. They look at the three months in front of them and ask whether the deposits will continue, which is a different question with a different answer.

What is realistically available at six months

The two worth noticing are equipment financing and factoring, because both shift the underwriting away from your operating history.

Equipment financing is secured by the machine, so a young business buying a truck or a lift is a very different risk than the same business asking for unsecured working capital. Factoring largely underwrites your customer — a six-month-old cleaning company invoicing a well-established property manager can factor when it could not get an advance.

If your need fits either, start there. The pricing difference is substantial.

What you will be offered, roughly

Sizing at six months typically lands between 50% and 100% of one month's deposits, versus up to 150% for an established business. On $30,000 in monthly deposits, that is roughly a $15,000 to $30,000 conversation.

Terms will be at the short end — three to six months rather than twelve to eighteen. Pricing reflects the shorter track record, and there is no negotiating your way out of that; it is what the file is.

What you can control is not taking more than the job needs. At this stage the offer maximum and the sensible amount are rarely the same number.

The three things that most improve an offer at six months

1. Deposit consistency across all three months. With only three months of history, every month carries triple the weight it would in a twelve-month file. One weak month out of three is a third of your entire track record. If you can wait until three consistent months are behind you, wait.

2. Zero negative days. In a thin file, overdrafts are disproportionately damaging. There is no long history to offset them.

3. A specific, documented use. "Working capital" gets sized conservatively. "This equipment quote, for this machine, which lets me take this contract" gets read as a business plan with a repayment source attached. At six months, that distinction matters more than it will later.

The mistake to avoid at this stage

Young businesses growing quickly are the most common candidates for stacking — taking a second advance while a first is outstanding — because growth consumes cash and the capital is easy to get.

Two daily debits against six months of history is how a promising business becomes a distressed one. Most funding agreements treat stacking as a default event, and the underlying cash flow problem compounds rather than resolves.

If a second advance is being considered to cover the first, stop and get advice. That is the signal, not the solution.

Frequently asked questions

Can I get funded at three or four months?

Very rarely in this channel. Six months is the floor for most partners. Some processor-integrated products go slightly earlier if card volume is strong and verifiable, but the options are narrow and the pricing is at the top of the range.

Does my personal credit matter more when the business is young?

Somewhat. With less operating history to underwrite, funders lean marginally harder on the guarantor. It is still one input among several — deposit consistency generally carries more weight than the score itself.

Should I wait until two years to get better rates?

If the money is not producing a return, yes — waiting is free and pricing improves materially with time in business. If the capital lets you take a contract, buy equipment that opens new work, or capture a season, then the return usually exceeds the cost difference. The question is always what the money does.

Will taking funding now hurt me later?

Not if you repay it cleanly. A completed advance with no missed payments is a positive signal to the next funder and often produces better terms. What hurts is a default, a stacked position, or a pattern of taking new funding to service old funding.