Capital Efficiency: The Metric That Separates Good Investments from Great Ones
Something I’ve been thinking about lately: we talk a lot about ROI in this industry, but not enough about capital efficiency.
What do I mean? Two investments can both return % ROI, but if one locks up your capital for months and the other returns principal in weeks with profits following, they’re fundamentally different opportunities.
Capital efficiency is about:
How quickly your principal is returned
How frequently you receive distributions
How fast you can redeploy into the next opportunity

Good breakdown on the complexity shift at the $100k+ level. The deal architecture piece is real, strategic bridging and hybrid reverse consolidations require a different operational framework than standard MCA.
One thing I would add: the operational complexity at this level is not just about knowing the right structure. It is about executing it consistently across a growing book. When you are managing multiple $500k+ reverse consolidations simultaneously, the tracking, compliance, and communication overhead scales faster than most shops expect.
The shops I have seen handle high-revenue files well are the ones that built the operational infrastructure to match the deal complexity, automated covenant tracking, structured communication workflows, and real-time portfolio visibility. Without that, the margin on complex deals gets eaten by the operational cost of managing them.
mark dusseau
starterstack.ai