In August 2020, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a complaint against Yellowstone Capital, Fundry, founder and CEO Yitzhak Stern, and president Jeffrey Reece, alleging that they unlawfully withdrew payments from their customers’ accounts, violating the FTC act, among other allegations.
This complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and will be decided by the court.
Yellowstone Capital (now operating as Fundry) extends merchant cash advances through a network of ISO (independent sales organization) partners. Their primary audience is low-credit business owners in need of immediate, short-term, non-collateralized capital.
As we mentioned above, Yellowstone Capital—now also known as Fundry—offers merchant cash advances (MCAs) through their network of independent sales organization partners. With this financing model, you’ll first connect with an ISO partner, but the funding will actually come from Yellowstone.
That said, here’s what you generally can expect from a Yellowstone MCA:
Advance amounts
Starting at $2,000
Terms
Typically two to three months
Fees
Factor rate of ~1.5
Unlike traditional small business lenders, Yellowstone Capital does not set minimum requirements for borrowers. Yellowstone is willing to work with business owners who already have other debt and will finance businesses in any industry.
That said, however, business owners should be cautious—in general, the more flexible the qualifications, the higher the risk for the financing company—and therefore, the higher the cost of the debt to the borrower.
Plus, merchant cash advances themselves are the most expensive type of business financing on the market—and with their repayment structure, cut into your cash flow, creating a cycle of debt that’s difficult to break.
Although a company like Yellowstone (Fundry) may seem like an ideal last-resort financing option for those with poor credit, for example, you’ll want to think carefully before taking on expensive short-term debt that you may not be able to pay off.
To be frank, we wouldn’t recommend turning to Fundry for a merchant cash advance. If you’re looking for fast, accessible financing, you still have a number of options, and these guides might point you in the right direction:
Nevertheless, if you want to learn more about Yellowstone’s application and funding process, here’s what you can expect:
Compared to other lenders and financing companies, Yellowstone Capital doesn’t have much of an underwriting process—especially in terms of qualification. As we mentioned, they will work with businesses in virtually any industry and business owners of any credit profile.
Once again, although this “anything goes” mentality might seem refreshing if you’ve been rejected for business funding before, the high-cost funding from Yellowstone Capital might actually prove to be even riskier for you. If you accept funding from Yellowstone Capital, you will have to sign a confession of judgment.
If you’re not able to repay your Yellowstone Capital debt on time, they can hold you fully liable while avoiding ordinary court procedures. You won’t be given an opportunity to dispute Yellowstone’s legal claims against you. Although a small number of states prohibit confessions of judgment, the majority allow them to be enforced against the borrower to some extent.
At the end of the day, you’ll likely be able to access funding through Yellowstone Capital, even if you’re not traditionally qualified. However, this funding will be high cost and high-risk that could potentially harm your business if you fall behind on payments.
That said, Yellowstone Capital can approve and fund deals on the same day that your application is received. It’s also important to note that Yellowstone will charge you underwriting and origination fees.
As soon as you fund with Yellowstone, you will have to dive into a daily remittance schedule. Though they will vary, typical Yellowstone Capital advances tend to have 70-day terms with daily ACH repayments.
As a result of this short repayment term, your payment schedule will not only be frequent, but the payments themselves will also be pretty expensive. If you’re not careful when taking out the cash advance, these daily repayments could end up significantly eating into your cash flow.
After you take on funding with Yellowstone Capital, you’ll need to connect with a representative by phone or talk to your ISO partner in order to keep track of your repayment. Yellowstone does not offer an online dashboard to check your repayment progress.
Now operating mainly under the Fundry name, there is not much customer service or other information available on the Fundry website.
According to the website, however, you can call 877-237-2297 or email info@fundrycap.com in order to contact the company. Additionally, if you want to reach out to one of the approved Fundry/Yellowstone ISOs, you can find a list of contact information here—although it’s unclear how up to date this list is.
Without a doubt, most of the Yellowstone Capital reviews online are negative.
Many of these negative reviews focus on their steep interest rates, unresponsive customer service, and misleading or even deceptive tactics in getting borrowers to sign a confession of judgement. In addition, many customers state that they had issues with payments—mentioning that Yellowstone continued to debit their account even after they paid their debt in full—and that customer service wasn’t helpful in addressing this mistake.
Unfortunately, these comments aren’t too surprising as it’s this practice that the FTC alleges that the company knowingly participated in—and it’s these allegations (among others) that are being addressed in the current lawsuit against Yellowstone and Fundry.
All of this said, however, there are a handful of reviewers out there who state that they knew exactly what they were getting into with an MCA from Yellowstone and were able to get fast cash when they needed it.
Overall, though, Yellowstone Capital reviews are overwhelmingly negative.
Fundera Score
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Credibly | Reliant Funding | Expansion Capital Group | Kalamata Capital Group |
Fundera Score 4
| Fundera Score 4
| Fundera Score 4
| Fundera Score 3
|
Products offeredWorking capital loans | Products offeredMerchant cash advances | Products offeredMerchant cash advances; working capital loans | Products offeredMerchant cash advances |
Interest ratesFactor rates as low as 1.15 | Interest ratesFactor rates starting at 1.18 | Interest ratesFactor rate of 1.18 to 1.45 | Interest ratesFactor rates starting at 1.12 |
Minimum credit score required500 | Minimum credit score required525 | Minimum credit score required500+ | Minimum credit score required500 |
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Credibly |
Fundera Score 4
|
Products offeredWorking capital loans |
Interest ratesFactor rates as low as 1.15 |
Minimum credit score required500 |
![]() |
Reliant Funding |
Fundera Score 4
|
Products offeredMerchant cash advances |
Interest ratesFactor rates starting at 1.18 |
Minimum credit score required525 |
![]() |
Expansion Capital Group |
Fundera Score 4
|
Products offeredMerchant cash advances; working capital loans |
Interest ratesFactor rate of 1.18 to 1.45 |
Minimum credit score required500+ |
![]() |
Kalamata Capital Group |
Fundera Score 3
|
Products offeredMerchant cash advances |
Interest ratesFactor rates starting at 1.12 |
Minimum credit score required500 |
Yellowstone Capital is not in Fundera’s Lender Network. The Fundera team carefully vets all of the lenders in our network, and have determined that Yellowstone Capital (Now Known as Fundry) either doesn’t have the technology to work with Fundera or does not offer a financing product that competes with the other lenders in its product class. We suggest considering another lender in this product class.
See if you qualify for similar products in Fundera’s Lender Network.
Randa Kriss is a senior staff writer at Fundera.
At Fundera, Randa specializes in reviewing small business products, software, and services. Randa has written hundreds of reviews across a wide swath of business topics including ecommerce, merchant services, accounting, credit cards, bank accounts, loan products, and payroll and human resources solutions.