AFO · Alternative structures
Capital that doesn't fit a classic debt or equity bucket.
Revenue-based financing, royalty deals, equity crowdfunding, and hybrid structures fill specific gaps where conventional debt is too restrictive and equity is too dilutive. Each instrument has a distinct cost profile that the CPA models before commitment — the apparent simplicity often hides a higher effective cost of capital than the headline rate suggests.
What makes this family distinct
- RBF, royalty, crowdfunding — fits where classic debt or equity doesn't.
- Effective cost of capital modelled, not just the headline rate.
- Mixed structures (debt + RBF, equity + royalty) supported.
What this family is
Alternative structures
Revenue-based financing, royalty deals, crowdfunding, and hybrid structures that don't fit a single classic bucket.
Revenue-based financing (RBF) advances capital against future monthly revenue, repaid as a fixed percentage of sales until a multiple (typically 1.2–1.5x) is paid back. No dilution, no personal guarantee, no fixed term. Suits SaaS, e-commerce, and subscription businesses with at least six months of consistent revenue. The effective APR depends on repayment speed — fast growth means a higher implied rate, slow growth means a lower one.
Royalty financing trades capital for a royalty on future revenue, capped at a multiple of the advance or sunsetted after seven to ten years. Suits product businesses with strong gross margin and a clear revenue trajectory. The royalty rate (typically 2–8%) is negotiated against the use of proceeds and the addressable market — it can be cheaper than equity if revenue scales fast, more expensive if growth is flat.
Equity crowdfunding raises retail capital through securities-regulated platforms with offering caps, mandatory disclosure, and post-raise reporting obligations. Most useful for consumer brands with strong narrative + engaged audience; less useful for B2B or technical businesses where individual cheque sizes matter more than the count of investors.
3 programs in the catalog · 1 live
The programs in this family.
Each card links to the program profile. Coming-soon programs are surfaced honestly — the screener routes there with a consultation CTA instead of a self-serve apply link until the integration is wired through.
Capital advanced against future monthly revenue, repaid as a fixed % of sales.
Royalty Financing
Coming soonCapital in exchange for a royalty on future revenue, capped or sunsetted.
Equity Crowdfunding
Coming soonPublic retail equity raises through securities-regulated crowdfunding platforms.
Other families
Compare against the other capital options.
Most real-world deals end up stacked — senior plus a grant, RBF plus a tax credit, equity plus a working-capital revolver. The full picture is rarely one family.
- 7 programs
Debt
From the $50K equipment loan through to a $25M mezzanine layer, debt is rarely a single instrument. The right answer is usually a structure — senior plus ABL, senior plus a grant, equipment plus a working-capital revolver — modelled before you walk into any lender meeting.
Explore the family
- 8 programs
Grants & refundable tax credits
Federal and provincial grants plus refundable tax credits don't dilute ownership, don't carry interest, and don't have to be repaid. The trade-off is that every program is project-scoped with specific eligibility criteria, application windows, and reporting obligations a CPA needs to manage carefully.
Explore the family
- 1 program
Equity
Equity is the most expensive capital — once you've sold a share of the company you can't buy it back at the same price. The Capital Toolkit equity bucket exists to introduce founders to the right type of capital partner at the right stage, with the cap-table impact modelled before any term sheet is on the table.
Explore the family
Land on the right instrument before the first conversation.
Twenty-minute call. Bring the use of proceeds and a rough sense of where the business stands today — we’ll walk through which instrument or stack fits, what the providers will want to see, and how long the engagement takes.