While there are countless startups involved in small business lending, BlueVine does something a little different. Instead of offering loans, BlueVine does what’s called “factoring,” where it pays for customer invoices upfront, so that small businesses do not have to wait for the cash to come in. Cash flow is one of the biggest challenges facing small businesses, and BlueVine says it is tapping into a market that banks often overlook. “We are disrupting a very very old industry called invoice factoring,” said Eyal Lifshitz, founder and CEO at BlueVine. “They do million dollar loans all day but when you’re talking about sub $250,000, banks really don’t like that.”

http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/20/bluevine-raises-40-million-to-help-small-businesses-with-cash-flow/