Small Business Funding in Charleston, South Carolina

Charleston is the largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. The city is the county seat of Charleston County, and the principal city in the Charleston–North Charleston–Summerville Metropolitan Statistical Area. The city lies just south of the geographical midpoint of South Carolina's coastline and is located on Charleston Harbor, an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean formed by the confluence of the Ashley, Cooper, and Wando rivers. Charleston had an estimated population of 138,458 as of September 2020. The estimated population of the Charleston metropolitan area, comprising Berkeley, Charleston, and Dorchester counties, was 802,122 residents as of July 1, 2019, the third-largest in the state and the 74th-largest metropolitan statistical area in the United States.

Charleston is a popular tourist destination, with a considerable number of hotels, inns, and bed and breakfasts, numerous restaurants featuring Lowcountry cuisine and shops. Charleston is also a notable art destination, named a top-25 arts destination by AmericanStyle magazine.

Commercial shipping is important to the economy. The city has two shipping terminals, of a total of five terminals owned and operated by the South Carolina Ports Authority in the Charleston metropolitan area, which is part of the fourth-largest container seaport on the East Coast and the seventh-largest container seaport in the United States.

The port is also used to transfer cars and car parts for Charleston's auto manufacturing business, such as Mercedes and Volvo.

Charleston is becoming a popular location for information technology jobs and corporations, and this sector has had the highest rate of growth between 2011 and 2012, due in large part to the Charleston Digital Corridor. In 2013, the Milken Institute ranked the Charleston region as the ninth-best performing economy in the US because of its growing IT sector. Notable companies include Blackbaud, SPARC a Booz Allen Hamilton subsidiary, BoomTown, CSS, and Benefitfocus.

In June 2017, the mean sales price for a home in Charleston was $351,186 and the median price was $260,000.

We have witnessed the hardship that the 2008 financial crisis, and the 2020 COVID-19 crisis, brought to South Carolina. We also recognize how important small and medium-sized businesses are in the fight against hardship and crisis and in paving the road to recovery. This is why we provide small businesses with the loans and funding they need to thrive, and to push Charleston to the next level.

Of course, there are big banks and lenders out there who can provide funding. However, time and time again, these mainstream lenders fall short. This is because:

• Many lenders are unwilling to provide funding to small businesses.
• Lenders do not have insight into niche or specialist fields and therefore don't want to work with these non-mainstream businesses.
• Small businesses often do not meet credit check requirements.
• Small businesses often do not meet the rigid repayment requirements imposed by lenders.