10. GetCapital

Revenue: $15.24 million
Growth: 238.84%
Founder: Jamie Osborn (46)
Head office: Sydney
Employees: 50
Industry: Banking and financial services
Website: getcapital.com.au

With a background in financial services, GetCapital founder Jamie Osborn saw first-hand how difficult it could be for small businesses to secure the capital they need to grow.

The business launched in 2013 as an alternative to traditional financial institutions, committed to providing better services through a tech-enabled value chain.

In the last financial year, GetCapital saw revenues of more than $15 million, and growth of 239%, earning it 10th place on this year’s Smart50 list.

For SMEs, securing funding can be particularly difficult when they don’t have a property to put up as security, Osborn says.

“We see it all the time. A growing business, with strong cashflow, may still need funding to reach the next level.

“Unless they have excess equity in a property, it is very hard for them to get traditional bank funding,” he says.

Over the past five years, GetCapital has expanded its range of products to include working capital loans, vehicle finance, general equipment finance, trade finance and longer-term secured loans.

However, Osborn says the introduction of comprehensive credit reporting would allow the business to do even more.

There’s a lack of credit scoring methodologies available for SMEs, he says.

“We rely on good quality data, proprietary analytics and decisioning in order to make credit decisions.”

Access to better information would add more data points, and lead to more accurate underwriting, he adds.

When launching a business, Osborn says it’s important to focus on culture, and to set a “clear vision and a set of corporate values that guide decisions”.

GetCapital has values of growth, extreme ownership and trust, he says.

“Given the fluid and changing nature of the early-startup phase, without these strong guideposts in place, it could have been easy for things to have unravelled all too quickly.”