- 1Lightspeed funded $45M in MCAs in FY 2025 and expects 30% growth in FY 2026.
- 2At 1% of GTV, which peers reportedly reach, volume would be almost $1B.
- 3All advances are funded on balance sheet; default rates are in the very low single digits.
Point-of-sale company Lightspeed funded only $45 million in merchant cash advances in fiscal 2025, but management says the product could be far larger and that it is choosing to grow it slowly.
The size of the gap
CFO Asha Bakshani laid out the opportunity on the company's most recent earnings call. "There is a lot of opportunity. We can move faster if we wanted to," she said. Peers, she noted, advance about 1% of their gross transaction volume (GTV) as merchant cash advances, and Lightspeed is well below that. One percent of Lightspeed's GTV would be almost $1 billion.
Why Lightspeed is holding back
Bakshani said that in the current macro environment the company wants to move carefully with its Capital product. Default rates are in the very low single digits, she said, and it wants to keep them there.
Lightspeed estimates the MCA program will grow 30% in fiscal 2026. One reason for the conservative pace is that the company funds 100% of its advances on its balance sheet.
The company advertises that MCA repayments can be made either by split or by ACH.
Source reporting: deBanked.
