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copy_38757A14-93BA-4417-9FF1-6226C55C54E6.mov As we edge closer to our networking event at Moxies, here’s why this Monday evening the 9th should be marked with a star on your calendar: Experience the hotspot of Fort Lauderdale in an upscale setting. https://www.funderintel.com/event-details/funder-intel-industry-mixer-1 Engage with leaders from our Sponsors: CFG Merchant Solutions, Viking Funding, Optimum Bank, Everest Business Funding, Revenue Based Finance Coalition, Triton Recovery Group, and Liquidibee. These sponsors are innovators and leaders in their fields, and they’re looking forward to meeting you. Holiday Energy: Let’s close out the year with positivity and new opportunities!

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The Business Journals Feb 6, 2025 The Small Business Administration would be mandated to send many loans made under the Covid Economic Injury Disaster Loan program to the Treasury Department for collections under legislation put forth by the Senate Small Business Committee. The Complete Covid Collections Act would require the SBA to refer any loans made through the EIDL program that are eligible for collections to the Treasury Department, which would have the option to suspend, end or make collection efforts. That referral would essentially remove the discretion the SBA often has exercised when it comes to loans under its purview. The agency drew heat from lawmakers during the Biden administration for saying it would not collect on Covid-related Paycheck Protection Program loans of less than $100,000. Lawmakers at the time expressed concern the agency also would not collect on smaller EIDL program loans. Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, chair of the Senate Small Business Committee, sponsored the legislation. The SBA last year did roll out a brief reprieve from collections efforts and also pulled back a tranche of EIDL program loans set for collection by the Treasury Department. Business owners who were not current on their loans but started making payments were allowed to enroll in the SBA’s Hardship Accommodation Program, allowing those businesses to stave off collections further.  About $36 billion in EIDL-related loans were enrolled in the Hardship Accommodation Program as of October — spanning about 301,000 loans, according to data provided to The Playbook as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request to the SBA. It's a big chunk of the agency's overall portfolio. The SBA approved about 4.1 million EIDL-related loans across 2020, 2021 and 2022 for a total of $397.5 billion, according to numbers compiled by the agency. Ernst said in a statement to The Playbook the legislation targets people who broke the law to get hundreds of billions in government funds. “At $36 trillion in debt, we cannot afford to leave $200 billion sitting on the table, especially in the hands of fraudsters,” Ernst said, referencing the amount of money distributed through the program that has been flagged as potentially fraudulent. “We are marshaling all the resources necessary to recoup these funds and hold these criminals accountable. Con artists took advantage of small businesses’ pain. They will not get away with it.” The legislation also would: • Extend the life of the office of special investigator for pandemic recovery by five years, to 2030, and give law enforcement up to 10 years to file charges or enforcement actions for fraud under any of the Covid-19 small-business programs, including the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant program and the Restaurant Revitalization Fund program. • Require the SBA administrator to testify annually about the implementation of collections claims and the improper payments they discovered. • Require the Attorney General to submit a report to Congress 90 days after the bill becomes law on enforcement actions, number of prosecutions, amounts recovered and other items — and then monthly thereafter.  The legislation would need to be passed by the House and Senate before being signed by President Trump, but Republican control of Congress could aid the act's advancement, whether as a standalone bill or packaged into larger legislation. Senate Small Business Committee ranking member Ed Markey, D-Mass., said in a statement following the passage of the legislation out of committee this week on a party-line vote that the bill “unleashes debt collectors on struggling small businesses, including those making good faith attempts at repayment." But it's clear that former Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler, who has been nominated to be the next SBA administrator, will make recovering small-business pandemic funds a high priority. She said in a recent hearing the agency would have a “zero-tolerance policy” toward waste, adding she would be “continuing Covid collections” to ensure the greatest return to the taxpayer, although she did not specify what those collections could mean. While some small-business owners have pressed the Trump administration to consider forgiving such loans, there currently are no efforts in Congress to do so. Experts previously have said such forgiveness is unlikely, given its cost to the government, but stressed the SBA could institute "offers in compromise" or other negotiated settlements of outstanding loans. FULL STORY https://www.bizjournals.com/bizjournals/news/2025/02/06/sba-covid-eidl-loans-small-business-collections.html

From Techcrunch: Since fintech startup Brex’s inception in 2017, its two co-founders Henrique Dubugras and Pedro Franceschi have run the company as co-CEOs. But starting today, the pair told TechCrunch in an exclusive interview, the San Francisco-based corporate credit card and expense management company is shifting to a more traditional — and what they say should be a more agile — model of just one CEO at the helm. Franceschi will become the sole CEO while Dubugras will become chairman of Brex’s board. In an in-depth conversation, the two co-founders gave us a peek into what the new structure will look like, the company’s current state of finances and how it has managed to reduce its cash burn. The close friends started working together as co-founders of another company, Brazilian payment processing startup Pagar.me, in 2012 at the wee age of 16. (That company ended up getting acquired by Stone Pagamentos for “tens of millions of dollars” — before the two had even gone to college.) While both founders could code, they quickly realized that Franceschi was the “better coder.” Rather than having one person manage a part of the organization like product and engineering and the other one manage sales and marketing, they decided to split their duties as external and internal co-CEOs (a decision they touched on in this episode of the Found podcast last year).  The model worked so well at that company, they said, that they decided to employ the same strategy when they founded Brex after dropping out of Stanford to participate in the YC Winter 2017 cohort. Ups and downs The once high-flying company has been on a roller-coaster ride in recent years. Two years ago, it was valued at $12.3 billion after raising $300 million and had poached former Meta exec Karandeep Anand to serve as its chief product officer after having led Meta’s business products group. (He was then named the first president of the company in November of 2023.) In January, Brex laid off 282 people, or about 20% of its staff. That was after an October 2022 layoff of 136 people, or 11% of its staff, across all departments as part of a restructuring. Today, it has 1,000 workers. There’s also been a lot of shuffling among Brex’s management. Sam Blond left his role as chief revenue officer in 2022 to join Founders Fund (a position he departed in March). Earlier this year, Brex announced that its COO, Michael Tannenbaum, was transitioning from his role to become a board member. At that time, Camilla Morais, who was SVP of global operations, was promoted to COO. And it was announced that Cosmin Nicolaescu was transitioning from his role as CTO to an adviser position this summer. Read full story: https://techcrunch.com/2024/06/12/fintech-brex-abandons-co-ceo-model-talks-ipo-cash-burn-and-plans-for-a-secondary-sale/