Alex Shvarts: FundKite Founder & CEO, SMB Funding Leader

Alex Shvarts is the founder and chief executive officer of FundKite, one of the most active independent SMB funding platforms in the United States. Under Shvarts, FundKite has deployed more than a billion dollars of capital into American small businesses, approving deals from $100,000 to $2 million — often in hours rather than the weeks or months traditional bank underwriting requires.

Only one in ten U.S. small businesses receives a loan from its primary bank, according to the Small Business Administration. That gap — the largest unfinanced segment of the American economy — is the market Shvarts built FundKite to serve.

The thesis

Traditional bank underwriting is built for predictability. Most small businesses are not predictable in the ways banks are built to measure — seasonal cash flow, owner-operator structures, narrow margins, and limited collateral all read as risk to a regional bank algorithm. Shvarts’s argument is that those same businesses are not risky at all when underwritten on real-time deposit and revenue data instead of two-year-old tax returns.

FundKite reviews live banking activity, processes the file, makes a decision, and funds — frequently same-day. The platform’s underwriting model is built on tens of thousands of completed deals across restaurants, contractors, medical practices, retail, logistics, auto, and professional services.

Background

Shvarts began his career in fintech operations and underwriting before founding FundKite. He is regularly cited in industry coverage on alternative finance, revenue-based funding, and the SMB credit gap, and has been a vocal advocate for transparency and disclosure standards across the alternative funding industry.

On the record

“The American small business does not have a quality problem. It has an access problem. Banks were built to say no fast. We were built to say yes fast — and to be right.” — Alex Shvarts