Nav
Controlling Business’s Credit Health

A worryingly large percentage of small business owners are unaware of business credit and the balance it could bring into their ventures. According to the seasoned financial expert, Levi King, Founder and CEO of Nav, both personal and business credit ratings act as a gauge for the financial reputation of businesses, he says, “Companies lack insight on their credit scores and reports to better understand their business’s financial standing.” This is precisely what Nav assists their clients with—understanding their financial health and finding business funding. “The primary objective of our product is to assist small business owners in understanding, improving, protecting, and taking advantage of the opportunities with their financial data so that they can build the business of their dreams,” affirms King. Nav, a venture-backed fintech company, has developed a modern way to manage business financial data and get streamlined access to financing.

Nav is transforming the way small businesses understand and leverage their financial data. King states, “Small business owners often don’t have the time or expertise to make the best financial decisions, which makes it tough for them to get affordable capital.” Considering the complexity ruling the entire credit and loan procedures, Nav has developed an app that allows access to business credit reports and monitoring, cash flow analysis and eventually finds suitable lending options based on the customer’s credit and business profile.

The company has integrations with consumer credit and business credit bureaus that allow clients to track and monitor their credit scores, as well as track the credit of other businesses, like competitors or customers, so they can glean competitive advantage or for risk management. Both credit and cash flow are primary ways that a business lender judges a company. “Once the client signs up, we’re able to provide them immediate transparency into their credit and cash flow health, which we model for educational purposes so that they can understand how lenders make a decision on their business, what the suppliers look at, why they are not qualified for the loan they want, what are the risks involved, and more,” illustrates King.

The primary objective of our product is to assist small business owners in understanding, improving, protecting, and taking advantage of the opportunities with their financial data

Nav protects clients’ data with constant support to identify any errors and alerts them to any changes in their credit data so they can spot and resolve identity theft more quickly. To elaborate, Nav assisted a beauty product wholesaler—who had been using personal credit cards to invest in her business for 21 years and never really heard about her business credit profile—in differentiating between good and bad rates and help her build and leverage her business credit. In the process, they revealed old, inaccurate information in her credit reports that got removed. Eventually, she was able to qualify for an SBA loan. As a result, the customer saved on financing and was able to buy more products, hire employees, and conduct a sustainable business. In a nutshell, Nav provides one continuous product that allows clients to take advantage of their data and makes recommendations for what they should do next to improve, or for when they need access to credit or other products for their business.

At the core, Nav hopes to materially decrease the death rate of small businesses in the US, and eventually in other parts of the world. Besides aggressive expansion plans, “We are also integrating with certain vendors to underwrite our entire customer base, so that before one needs a loan they are already approved,” adds King.