Kabbage Business Loan Review
This review of Kabbage will help you to get a better understanding of the company’s services, reputation within the industry and company history. We run through what Kabbage is looking for from borrowers and of course what existing borrowers had to say when leaving their Kabbage reviews online. Read on for our full Kabbage review to learn if your business is a good fit for a Kabbage small business loan.
Kabbage Review in Numbers: 2022 Updated
💰 Loan Amount |
Up to $250,000 |
💸 Loan Term |
6 to 18 months |
⛔ Unsecured? |
Unsecured line of credit |
⌚ Requirements |
|
⭐ Client Reviews |
94% |
🌐 Website: |
Kabbage.com |
🌝 Easy to Apply: |
Yes |
📃 Required: |
|
💳 Minimal Interest Rates |
4% |
💌 Online Feedback: |
4.7 / 5 Trust Score on TrustPilot |
🏆 Awards and Recognition: |
|
**Notice**
Kabbage has recently announced it has temporarily stopped issuing new facilities and has made big reductions to existing customer credit lines as a result of the damaging effects of COVID-19. The action has been taken so Kabbage can conserve cash and continue to operate into next year.
Kabbage Review Summary
Overall
-
Credibility - 95%
95%
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Client Reviews - 94%
94%
-
Website - 100%
100%
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Compatibility - 90%
90%
Editor's Conclusions
Kabbage is an established, reputable company with good customer reviews — even if they’re slightly edged by some of their competitors’ reviews. Their apps and website are extremely impressive, as is their all-in-one approach to cash flow products. Kabbage is only suitable for businesses that have been operating for at least one year.
Credibility & Company Story
How Kabbage Started
Kabbage is a fintech company based in Atlanta, Georgia, which was founded in 2009 — though it wasn’t until 2011 in which it was launched publicly. Aimed to fund small businesses in an efficient way, the fintech company used AI and automation to leverage their services.
The lending platform was created by Kathryn Petralia, Rob Frohwein, and Marc Gorlin. The three had a keen eye on relocating to San Francisco and expanding overseas to the United Kingdom. Kathryn has been on the board of directors at many companies, including Rented.com, CARE and PadSplit. Most of these companies are in Atlanta, Georgia, just like Kabbage. Rob has a similar story too, being on the Board of many Atlanta companies over the years. Marc was slightly less active, having stayed Chairman at The Lanta Group for over 14 years before creating Roadie and co-founding Kabbage.
A year after its public operations, Kabbage entered a partnership with QuickBooks, which allows QuickBook users to integrate their accounts with Kabbage. Kabbage has also teamed up with Stripe and Xero.
How did Kabbage Grow its Presence in the Market?
Kabbage is far from the industry leader, but they’re a $200m/year company that is growing and has lent more than $8bn since its founding in 2008. They established their presence in the market by offering automated cash flow solutions as their main revenue-generator – lines of credit.
However, more recently the company has expanded into more data analytics products. Kabbage Insights is an AI-based cash flow solution where customers can predict cash flow patterns, which is a complementary product with the lines of credit.
Kabbage also released Kabbage Payments in 2019, which is a payment processing solution for SMEs. They’re gradually becoming an all-in-one entity for SMEs for anything cashflow related. This has certainly been conducive to their growth in the market.
Leading Private Investors in Kabbage
In August 2020, it was confirmed that Kabbage was acquired by the financial services giant American Express. The full terms of the deal have not been disclosed, but media reports are suggesting it values Kabbage at around $850 million. Whilst the deal covers the acquisition of IP, technology and staff, interestingly it does not include the existing loan book. The returns and risk of the existing book remains solely with Kabbage.
Kabbage CEO and co-founder, Rob Frohwein, had this to say on the news “At Kabbage, we have always made the success of America’s small businesses our primary objective… By joining American Express, we can help more small businesses succeed with a fully digital suite of financial products to help them run and grow their companies.”
In its last equity round in 2017, led by SoftBank, the firm raised $250 million dollars. Some of the leading private investors have included:
- SoftBank Vision Fund
- Credit Suisse
- BlueRun Ventures
- Santander
- Recruit Strategic Partners
In total, Kabbage has a long line of investors (27). SoftBank had always remained its primary backer, prior to the recent news that Amex acquired the firm in 2020.
In Detail: What Kabbage Does
A Kabbage line of credit is all about versatility – you only have to draw on and pay on funds when required and the maximum size of the facility can be $250k. The term length is slightly less flexible however, being between 6 and 18 months.
Whilst you will only have to pay interest on the funds you draw from the facility, each drawdown is treated as an individual loan for which you can opt for a 6, 12 or 18-month repayment schedule. For this reason, it is not always the best option for businesses that only require finance for a short period of time (say a matter of weeks or a couple of months) as your interest will be based on at least a 6-month borrowing term.
Loan interest rates from Kabbage start at a very low 4%. Loans from Kabbage are unsecured, meaning no collateral is used. There is however a personal guarantee, meaning you will personally be responsible for the loan if the business fails to pay the debt back. It must be noted Kabbage also operates a front-loaded fee structure where you will pay the majority of your repayment fees earlier in the loan terms. For the initial two months of a six-month loan, the initial six months of a twelve-month loan, or the initial nine months of an eighteen-month loan, your fee will be somewhere between 1.25% and 10% of the original principal per month. For the remaining duration of your loan, your fee will be 1% of the principal. This can sound a little confusing but Kabbage will detail this at the onset of your line of credit and a loan repayment calculator details this on their website.
Kabbage is more than just a loan provider, though. You can use the platform to sell gift certificates, send invoices, use custom pay links to accept card payments, and use their Kabbage Insights to view your cash flow with an extremely visual dashboard. These separate products were released in 2019, but they go hand-in-hand with the main product of Kabbage: loans via a line of credit.
The payment solutions that Kabbage offers is reasonably priced at 2.25% per card transaction. Kabbage claims there are no additional charges or long-term contracts. This is a useful way to get paid, in which you can send professional invoices or pay links in order to accept card payments. These are the two ways to accept card payments (not a physical terminal).
Kabbage Insights
In a newly launched product, Kabbage Insights is essentially a better way to use your own data. For example, you can not only view all of your accounts within one place, but there are graphs of your cash flow patterns that are very easy to discern. This helps businesses see what might be coming next, and predict the future in a very quick and visual way. The visual aspect allows you to see if things are growing exponentially, and to see where your trend lines are going to cause concern in the future (i.e. “if cash flow continues down this path, by April we will not be able to meet all of our current liabilities”). You can even set alerts on the program too.
Kabbage Business Loans Client Reviews
TrustPilot: 6,472 reviews, 84% ‘excellent’, 9% ‘great’, 3% ‘average’, and only 2% ‘bad’.
The Feedback:
The majority of Kabbage reviews seem to be praising Kabbage for their great customer service and for how easy and quick it is to use. Here we detail just some of the Kabbage reviews found online:
“It was totally a painless and fast experience”
“Excellent! Thank goodness, no hassle!”
“I signed up with Kabbage and it did not take long to get approved and for a higher line of credit than I need. Later I was assigned an account rep named Alexis and she was helpful and got my money really fast with a special program. I can’t say enough good things. Thanks so much for your help.”
Analysis of Client Reviews:
With a vast total of 6,472 Kabbage reviews on TrustPilot, it is fair to say that over 90% of reviews being either ‘great’ or ‘excellent’ is impressive. With only 3% of reviews being negative, it seems that Kabbage can be trusted to provide very
Kabbage.com Website Review
Kabbage.com is a stable, useful website that is relatively easy to navigate. They have a resource center that acts as a blog, in which they publish frequent helpful articles. A help center is always a useful tool that helps search the articles — but there is an incredibly detailed FAQ section too.
The page regarding business loans could perhaps contain more information, such as the interest rates offered but we can’t expect a business to advertise these freely. A great feature that not many of its competitors have is an IOS and Android app, both of which have good reviews.
Kabbage Loan Compatibility
Startup: Not very. Businesses must have been operating for a year, though only $50,000 in annual revenue is required
Bad Credit: Unclear on how they treat bad credit
Sole Trader: Accepting
Established Businesses: Accepting, but capped at $250,000 loans
Kabbage Short Review
Kabbage is a good company with a strong reputation among its customers. Their USP is that you can receive cash flow insights backed by AI as well as having payment solutions along with your line of credit. Loans start at a low 4% and do not require collateral. The website is great too, but the largest limitation is that they’re not very accommodating to startups.
Submit an Expedited Application to Kabbage the link below.