1. Shop For Rates

You should get instant online free quotes, and be able to apply securely online.

2. Apply Online

Be able to use a secure online application and let a qualified loan specialist help you find the best loan program.

3. Get Prequalified

Find out how much money you can borrow for your next home purchase!

4. Get Pre-Approved

Get free, no obligation pre-approved commitment letter that you qualify.

5. Loan Processing And Approval

This is when your loan is processed, goes through underwriting and final approval.

Taking these steps will be in you best interest to secure a mortgage that will benefit you and your family. It will also help to save you money

..one would hope that with the additional money, Cooking.com can now afford/find the time to update their site…..

It is not only pragmatic for a later stage company to seek other non-dilutive forms of financing (i.e. venture debt) but it is often in the best interests of management and the shareholders of the company to do so. It certainly DOES NOT portend that the company has no other financing options. In the case of Cooking.com that presumption couldn’t be further from the truth. Furthermore, if the author took the time to understand Cooking’s actual business model instead of writing an article based on pure speculation and lack of knowledge then we wouldn’t even be having this discussion.

Articles such as these do the venture lending community a huge disservice. There is a ton of misinformation out there about venture lending that is being propagated by the uninformed. Testimonials such as Jeremy Allaire’s comments help a great deal in correcting those wrong and oftentimes grossly inaccurate assertions about venture debt.

Nick

venture debt is never — never — available to companies that have not raised lots of venture capital from deep pocketed VCs

a company with cash flows (EBITDA) can get plain old ban k debt, e.g. a revolving line of credit, based on some conservative percentage of receivables. happens every boring day, a killion times over

“venture debt” is for young companies that dont have EBITDA

the lenders are lending entirely based on the confidence of the venture capital investors — as venture debt is senior to equity, VCs have to hand over the company to the venture debt lender if there is a default.

as for the econimics, the premise of venture debt as an asset class (that is, how lenders make money) is

way above market interest rates (today, typically Prime rate plus 5-7%, or 10-12% per annum) plus equity “kicker” in the form of a small warrant (typically a couple percentage points on the amount of the loan, e.g. 3% of the loan is the value of the warrant — if the loan is say $1 million, then warrant is for $30,000 stock, at the last VC price, or lowest price if there is a cram down.)

often a great deal for startups, for sure. but a very very dubious asset class (um, what percentage of venture backed companies fail?) and a sure sign that the bubble is turning into a BUBBLE

I think that “Venture Debt” would be the kind of debt that is directed towards startups or businesses in early stages and where the interest rates are higher than junk debt (because the startup business is risky and usually there is not much to secure it with). Well, a company that lends money at around 20% on average and is well diversified will deliver good results compared to the market averages (11%), but this is definitely not the return that VC companies are looking for, hence either the appearance of a new industry, or the change of the term Venture Capital.

As Patrick Bultema mentioned, this is a big topic. So much could be written about it…

The reason that early-stage companies are forced to raise venture capital is that there’s no way a startup can raise debt capital. Once a company matures, its ability to raise debt rather than having to return to vulture equity may well be a sign of strength, not weakness. (Some VC firms, Sandhill Capital in particular, are increasingly getting into the venture debt business, alongside their traditional venture equity business).

I know nothing about cooking.com, so I have no idea of the details of this particular deal, but any Finance 101 professor can tell you that the premise of this author’s post is backwards.

Banks don’t give money for free. There is some type of collateral on the line — whether it’s your house or your soul.

No one gives free money friends. No one.

Venture Debt firms, after all, get “as if converted” equity in the form of warrants (or similar), so they are getting “equity”, they’re just getting it later.

In more serious terms though, there are no other places to read about it except for blogs like TC and others like it. And since it’s so easy these days to launch a site and so many try to do it, they all form the audience (myself included) hungry for this type of information.
Plus, it helps to guesstimate the valuation of a certain type of business with a certain number of unique monthly visitors. Thus, these articles are welcome.

But like others have said, it depends on the uniqueness of each situation. Certainly don’t think its a sign of any emerging trend.

I agree that whether or not it is better or worse than traditional venture capital depends on the terms of each deal.

The only thing I noticed as weird is “Venture Debt”.

See this: Venture capital is a type of private EQUITY [upper case by MikeT] capital typically provided by professional, institutionally-backed outside investors to new, growth businesses. …
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venture_capital

Are we witnessing the birth of a new type of VC business?

In several recent cases, I’ve seen venture debt deals that seem to suggest these institutions are competitively displacing what could have otherwise been venture equity deals. And no, they aren’t bridge or convertible instruments. They aren’t AR factoring, nor asset based. For all practical purposes, they are doing debt deals that serve the purpose that would otherwise have been risk equity, with modest warrant coverage, so limited dilution.

Is this an emerging trend? Is it going to offer a competitive alternative to venture? Seems this would be worthy of a serious editorial piece. BTW, virtually every fast growing company as it matures seeks an optimal balance between debt, equity, and balance sheet assets. It isn’t debt bad, equity good, or venture bad, bootstrap good. But rather, what is the optimal way to resource the establishment and growth of a successful company. Not a simply issue, and I’ve grapple with it as a raw startup, and being CEO of a startup that’s gone public.

Unfortunately, the this piece throws in a drive by shooting of a big and important topic without understanding the domain or current state of the news on financing. So two suggestions. One, consider giving the topic appropriate attention. Two, make sure you know the domain before you go Op Ed.

I know this is coming off as a bit harsh. I do appreciate the “news” here. This one was just an uncommon miss from my perspective.

They are just a group of average developers, adding marginal feature enhancements and white labeling their core technology…which they are making work…debt makes perfect sense if you read #9 comment about IP heavy companies

- also Im sure they are pofitable, and debt should mean they can pay it off early before it is converted into - shares of equity.

- its a huge gamble that is betting the company’s status quo vs. todays hot internet market. Its probably a good bet - either way it turns out atleast they tried

http://www.whatshottoday.com

Just my 2 cents, I really do not like TC’s mentality that every website (1.0, 2.0 whatever) needs VC money to be successful. Hey Mike why don’t you highlight self funded startups from time to time (hint hint). Maybe you do, but whenever I visited your site I see the word million or facebook in almost every story.

Here is a video highlighting those who did not seek VC support and look where they are at now.

http://www.myvidster.com/video/2629