Jodie Imam and Lance Hodges of Tractor Ventures join Simon Pound to talk about the growing startup industry and how they’re helping fund it.

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Startup founders have a few very well known ways to get funding, and most of them involve giving up equity in their companies. Sometimes this works out great for all involved, and many companies wouldn’t exist without the support of funders who believe in and enable the founder’s vision.

But sometimes growth companies might have great businesses that just don’t fit traditional banking and finance structures, so founders are required to give over equity just to make it to fight another day. The higher the growth, the bigger this problem can be – companies can get punished and founders lose heaps of equity just because they are doing well.

One new idea is debt financing, where specialist operators are able to judge high growth companies and fit them into debt models, where they get the funds, the backers get good interest and no equity is traded. 

One such group offering this innovative service to New Zealand and Australian high growth companies is Tractor Ventures. COO Jodie Imam has experience as a business leader growing a fashion company tenfold, as a start-up founder who exited to Airtasker and as a supporter and enabler of people in startups, especially female founders. And general partner Lance Hodges has held leadership roles in product for Vend, been a startup founder and advisor and supporter to many companies in the ecosystem.

Both startup legends in their own right, Jodie and Lance joined Business is Boring this week to talk about why they wanted to be part of this new model and how it all works.