The Wyoming Smart Capital Network (WSCN) creates jobs by helping businesses access capital. The WSCN Growth Capital Program reduces barriers faced by small businesses, including startups and disadvantaged groups such as veterans, women, rural communities, and communities of color.
We offer resources to bridge the gap between what a borrower needs and where a bank is comfortable lending. Our capital access program is a statewide resource that allows more Wyoming small businesses to startup or expand operations.
Wyoming Smart Capital Network – Growth Capital Program
Business capital can be difficult to obtain due to lending requirements.
To help provide a small business a loan, WSCN purchases up to 25% of the loan amount and subordinates our interest (in liquidation following a default) to the participating lending institution. This increases a borrower’s lending capability and provides a business access to a bank loan. Proposals can be approved and funded within two weeks. The participating bank services the loan as they normally would.
Eligibility
- Business is located in Wyoming
- Business has fewer than 750 employees
- Borrower is not an executive officer, director, or principal shareholder of the participating lender
- Developer projects, residential real estate and purchase goodwill/blue sky are ineligible
Use of Funds + Terms
- Business loans for working capital, real estate acquisition + more
- A maximum loan participation of $1 million
- Funds cannot be used for refinancing existing bank debt, change of ownership, owner reimbursement, delinquent taxes, passive or investment real estate speculative activities, or other prohibited uses
- Maximum term is ten years
- WSCN fee is typically 1% or less of the loan amount based on underwriting
How to Get Started
Contact your current lender. If your lending institution is a WSCN program participant, your loan officer will go through the loan qualifications process with you and apply on your behalf. If your lender is not a program participant, or is unaware of the program, please contact us directly and we will enroll your bank in the program.
WSCN was founded in 2012 with the support of a consortium of seventeen Wyoming municipalities to deliver economic development programs, with initial funding from the U.S. Treasury’s State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI). The participating municipalities included Laramie, Casper, Cheyenne, Cody, Douglas, Edgerton, Gillette, Green River, Hanna, Hartville, Midwest, Pine Bluffs, Powell, Rawlins, Rock Springs, Sundance and Wheatland. These seventeen municipalities served as WSCN’s eligible service area for the original SSBCI deployment.
The partnership between WSCN and the Wyoming municipal Consortium has been a catalyst for commercial business in Wyoming. The WSCN team is in its tenth year of professionally managing the original SSBCI allocation, now an evergreen fund, on behalf of our Consortium of municipalities. WSCN works to serve Wyoming small businesses with the capital necessary to obtain bank financing. Through this effort, the community’s benefit from job creation/retention and the regional banks across Wyoming benefit from a flexible lending partner.
Today WSCN serves the entire State on behalf of the Rural Development Fund. This program was launched thanks to a $4 million grant from the U.S Department of Commerce, Economic Development Administration (EDA), CARES Act Recovery Assistance program, and a $1 million match from the WSCN.WSCN works to increase the number of lenders able to finance new clients through our credit support programs, and to increase the familiarity with bank financing options among small business owners and the support organizations that serve them in their communities.
As an entrepreneurial support program, WSCN has supported 157 small business loans, deployed $22 million in funds and leveraged $105 million in capital from banks for small businesses. In service of our mission 78% of businesses have 10 or less employees, 67% of projects are based in small towns and rural areas, 23% are women or minority owned, and 24% have been start-ups.
“We didn’t have any experience in retail, and while we were lucky to have half the fund covered by family, we didn’t have all the collateral needed to give the bank confidence. We’re grateful for the support of Wyoming Smart Capital Network. This business would not have been possible without that support.”
— Kyle and Amelia Young, Owner/Operators of Hannah Hometown Market, Hanna Wyoming
“The partnership between ANB Bank and the Wyoming Smart Capital Network has enabled a great number of small businesses to receive the funding needed to start or expand operations. The WSCN team has proven over the course of several projects to be responsive and thoughtful, and their processes are straightforward, seamless, and banker-friendly. Flexible terms and quick turnaround times make WSCN an easy choice to partner with.”
— Rebecca Miller, Community Bank President, ANB Bank