Business Bridge Loans: Commercial and Industrial, Not Real Estate
A commercial and industrial (C&I) bridge loan is short-term capital secured by a company operating assets — receivables, inventory, equipment, signed contracts — rather than by real estate. It exists to carry a business from today to one specific event: an acquisition closing, a contract mobilizing, a permanent facility finishing underwriting. As of 2026, C&I bridges typically run $250K to $5MM at roughly Prime plus 4%-8%, close in 3-7 business days, and stay outstanding 30-180 days on interest-only payments with credit for early payoff, so the real cost is the days you actually use the money. The discipline that separates a bridge from expensive working capital is the exit: a facility already in underwriting, a contract with an assignment of claims, an acquisition with a signed LOI and a funding date. If you are financing a building rather than a business, what you want is a commercial real estate bridge instead: a different structure, underwritten on the property, with a different lender set. Serve places those regularly. The two are separated here because they answer different credit questions, not because either of them belongs to someone else.
A few questions, no credit pull, no obligation. Or call 770-820-7409.
Where this fits best
Our sweet spot is $5MM to $50MM in revenue on asks between $250K and $5MM. We work meaningfully smaller and meaningfully larger — we have closed $250K factoring lines and $50MM facilities in the same year. What usually decides fit is your credit, your existing debt, and whether the structure works at all. Size is the last thing we look at, not the first.
- •Sweet spot is $5MM-$50MM in annual revenue and two or more years operating — neither is a cutoff
- •A named exit event with a date on it — not a hope
- •The need is $250K-$5MM and the money is needed in days rather than weeks
- •Operating collateral exists: receivables, inventory, equipment, or a contract that can be assigned
- •The bridge is step one of a sequence, with a cheaper permanent facility already in motion or ready to start
What is actually going on
Search "bridge loan" and the entire first page is about property. That is not an accident — commercial real estate bridge lending is a larger, better-funded advertising market, so the language got taken. An operating company with a timing problem ends up reading about loan-to-value ratios and appraisals that have nothing to do with its situation, and eventually gives up and calls whoever answers the phone fastest. What an operating company actually has is a gap between two dates. The acquisition funds on the 15th and the seller wants a deposit on the 1st. The contract was awarded but mobilization has to be paid before the first invoice goes out. The asset-based line is in underwriting and will close in seven weeks, and there are seven weeks of payroll between here and there. In each case the money has a specific source and a specific date. That is the definition of a bridge, and it is a different credit question entirely from lending against a building. The annualized rate on a bridge always looks alarming when you write it down. Prime plus 6% on 90 days is not the same economic event as Prime plus 6% for five years, and treating it as one leads companies to turn down a structure that would have cost them $40K to protect a transaction worth several hundred thousand. The honest way to evaluate a bridge is total dollars of interest against the value of the thing it protects, over the actual number of days outstanding. The failure mode is the exit. A bridge is safe when the takeout is real and visible, and dangerous when it is not, because the structure assumes repayment from an event rather than from operations. This is where a good advisor earns their keep: not by finding the money, which is usually the easy part, but by refusing to structure a bridge when the exit will not hold up.
How it works
Name the exit and its date
Everything else follows from this. An ABL in underwriting, a property under contract, an SBA approval in process, a contract with an assignment of claims, a signed acquisition LOI with a funding date. If the exit cannot be named in a sentence, there is no bridge to structure.
Size to the gap, not to the appetite
A bridge should cover the specific shortfall plus a modest cushion. Oversizing it means paying interest on money that sits idle and, worse, giving yourself room to spend the takeout before it arrives.
Identify the operating collateral
Receivables are the most common. Inventory, free-and-clear equipment, and assignable contract proceeds all work. Some structures are subordinated and will sit behind an existing factor or ABL rather than requiring first position, which matters if you already have a senior lender.
Close in 3-7 business days
Interest-only payments so debt service stays low while the bridge is live. Most products carry real early-payoff credit, so the day the takeout funds, you stop paying.
Run the permanent facility in parallel
This is the sequence that makes bridges worth doing — close the bridge in days, then let the cheaper six-to-eight-week facility underwrite while the business keeps operating. Waiting for the cheap money with no bridge is how companies lose the contract that justified the financing.
Terms, costs and timelines
| Facility size | $250K - $5MM+ |
|---|---|
| Collateral | Receivables, inventory, equipment, assignable contract proceeds — not real property |
| Pricing (2026) | Roughly Prime + 4%-8%, typically interest-only |
| Time to close | 3-7 business days from a clean file |
| Time outstanding | 30-180 days in most cases |
| Early payoff | Credit for early payoff on most products — you pay for the days you use |
| Lien position | First position preferred; subordinated structures available behind an existing factor or ABL |
| Qualifying exits | ABL or SBA in underwriting, signed acquisition with a funding date, assignable contract, property under contract |
| Disqualifying exits | Soft investor interest, expected revenue improvement, speculative asset appreciation |
| Serve fee | A success fee, earned only on closing. Agreed in writing before you sign anything. No retainers, no upfront costs |
A C&I bridge vs. the fast money that will find you first
| A merchant cash advance at the same speed | A structured C&I bridge | |
|---|---|---|
| Speed | 24-72 hours | 3-7 business days — slower, but not by much |
| Cost on a 90-day need | A 1.35 factor rate is 35% of principal regardless of how fast you repay | Prime + 4%-8% for 90 days, with early payoff credited |
| Repayment | Daily or weekly ACH from sales, starting immediately | Interest-only while outstanding, principal retired by the exit event |
| Effect on the next facility | A UCC filing and a daily draw that makes the ABL harder to underwrite | Structured to be taken out by the permanent facility, often by the same lender |
| What is underwritten | Trailing bank deposits | The exit event and the operating collateral behind it |
| Intermediary compensation | Built into the factor rate rather than quoted separately, so you rarely see it | A success fee, agreed in writing before you sign and earned only if you close |
How this plays out, with numbers
A specialty contractor doing about $18MM in revenue wins a $4.2MM municipal contract. Mobilization — crews, bonding, materials — runs roughly $600K, and the first progress payment is 75 days out under the contract terms. The company has $2.1MM in receivables from other work and a bank line that is fully drawn. The exit is the contract itself: an assignment of claims on the municipal receivable, plus an asset-based facility already in underwriting against the existing AR book, expected to close in about seven weeks. We place a $650K bridge at Prime plus 6%, interest-only, secured by the existing receivables and subordinated to nothing because the bank line is unsecured. Funding takes five business days. The ABL closes in week eight and retires the bridge. Total interest paid on the bridge: roughly $22K over 58 days. Against a $4.2MM contract the company would otherwise have had to decline, that is not a close call — but it only worked because the exit was two named, dated, documentable events rather than a general expectation that things would improve.
A representative structure, sized to a typical file. Details are generalized — we do not publish client specifics.
When this is the wrong answer
Half of being useful is being clear about what does not work. If one of these describes you, the honest path is below — and it may not run through us.
That is a commercial real estate bridge, underwritten on the property rather than on the business, and it is work we do constantly — quick to close, and needed all the time. Different structure, different lenders, same firm. Our real estate lending page is the right starting point, and the fastest route is simply to tell us what the property is and when you need to close.
A bridge with no takeout is not a bridge, it is short-term debt at bridge pricing, and in six months it will be the problem instead of the solution. What you probably want is a working capital facility or an asset-based line with an amortization you can actually carry.
Soft equity interest is not an exit and no credible lender will treat it as one. Come back when there is a signed term sheet, and in the meantime look at what your operating assets alone will support.
The diligence cost does not amortize at that size and the pricing gets punishing. A working capital loan or a single-invoice advance is usually the better structure.
