免费在线服务匹配的小型企业LendersAn art school uses an online lending matchmaker to find capital.

When the economy tanked around 2008, enrollment in Olya Losina's fledgling art school began to wane. Marketing theSan Diego-based Losina Art Centerto a new crop of students required cash the painter and her husband/business partner, Bill Beatty, didn't have. So in late 2011 they created a profile onLendio, a free online service that matches small businesses with lenders. Within minutes, they had a customized list of half a dozen potential lenders offering the five-figure, short-term financing they were seeking. Within days, they received the cash they needed.

LendioCEO Brock Blake says 300 U.S. lending institutions and nearly 1,300 individual lenders participate in the automated web platform, from banks and credit unions offering traditional, long-termloansto fast-cash alternative financiers such as peer-to-peer lenders and merchant cash-advance providers. Each month, roughly 10,000 business owners come to the 2-year-old site looking for financing, 60 to 70 percent of whom are approved for a loan, Blake says.