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New York-based fintech startup Skalar publicly launched on September 17, 2026, offering technology companies capital for customer acquisition without taking equity or imposing a fixed repayment schedule. Since its January inception, the company says it has committed to finance more than $125 million in sales and marketing spending across seven businesses over the next 12 months.
Repayment Follows Customer Revenue
Skalar funds sales and marketing programs, then collects repayments from revenue generated by the customers those programs acquire. Current agreements generally cap its return at about 1.1 times the capital provided. If customer revenue falls short, Skalar says it writes off the remaining balance rather than demanding repayment of the full original amount.
Risk Has Contractual Limits
The structure still carries obligations for borrowers. Skalar sets minimum revenue targets and can accelerate repayment if performance falls below them. It may also stop supplying additional capital, potentially leaving a startup without expected funding. Terms depend on estimates including customer revenue, profit margins, currency movements and attribution of sales to marketing investments.
Skalar CEO Sebastián Cárdenas told Crunchbase News that its agreements do not permit the company to seize borrower assets after a default or require specific cash balances and financial benchmarks.
A Selective Initial Market
Skalar is targeting technology companies that spend between $100,000 and $3 million per month on customer acquisition, consistently earn more from customers than they spend to acquire them, and hold enough cash to operate until the resulting revenue arrives. Four or five of its first seven customers are in Latin America, with others in the United States. It initially expects to finance no more than 15 companies annually.
Seed and Debt Backing
Monashees led Skalar's undisclosed seed round, which closed in the first quarter, with participation from Nido Ventures and angel investors. General Catalyst's Customer Value Fund is separately providing the debt capital used to finance customers' spending; the size of that arrangement was also not disclosed.
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