Product · Path 04
Funding a brand-new med-spa: one bundled structure, three coordinated tranches.
The bundled-structure path for med-spa owners opening a brand-new practice or acquiring one. Three coordinated tranches — equipment financing for the device stack, working-capital MCA for the opening inventory and first-90-day payroll, and SBA 504 for the owner-occupant real-estate line + build-out + long-term equipment — priced against three collateral-ledgers but coordinated on a single intake. Read the per-tranche collateral, the deal-size bands for a startup, the qualifying profile, and the parallel timeline before you walk the file to the underwriting desk.
Why one bundled structure
Each tranche sizes to its own collateral — coordinated, not stacked.
On a startup file, three different underwriting desks read the same practice against three different collaterals. Equipment financing prices against the device invoice value, working-capital MCA prices against projected card volume on the merchant processor the practice will run on, and SBA 504 prices against owner-occupant real-estate, the build-out, and the long-term equipment line. Coordinating the three tickets on a single intake — instead of treating each ticket as an independent product — is what keeps the file from drifting out of alignment between underwriting desks.
The bundled structure, side by side
Three collaterals, three desks, one intake.
The desk sizes the device ticket against the equipment invoice, the working-capital line against the projected card volume, and the SBA 504 piece against the owner-occupant real-estate line + the build-out + the long-term equipment. All three are coordinated on the same intake so the SBA pre-screen reads the equipment ticket and the MCA reads the projected card volume in the same week — not in three independent vendor funnels. Read equipment financing, merchant cash advance, and SBA 504 for each product on its own; this page sits above all three as the read for the bundled structure on a new or acquired practice.
Tranches
Three tickets sized to three collaterals — not three competing products.
The bundled structure reads three tranches against three collaterals. Equipment financing prices against the device itself, working-capital MCA against projected card volume, and SBA 504 against the owner-occupant real-estate line + the build-out + the long-term equipment. The three below cover every med-spa startup file the desk underwrites — specialty situations ship on the same program structure.
Equipment financing
$25k – $500k device tickets
Secured by the device itself
The financed device is the collateral — no blanket UCC on the practice. Lasers, RF / microneedling, body contouring, hydrafacial-class platforms, PRP centrifuges; the desk sizes each device against its useful life on a single equipment ticket per file.
Close in 7–14 days · per-device amortization
Working-capital MCA
$10k – $250k
Sized to projected card volume
Daily or weekly ACH against the merchant processor the practice already runs on. MCA bridges the cash gap on a startup file — opening inventory, the first-90-day payroll, the Q1 marketing push, the 30–90 day insurance-reimbursement gap before remittance lands.
Close in 7–14 days · factor-rate payoff
SBA 504
$250k – $2.5M owner-occupant RE
Owner-occupant real-estate + TI + long-term equipment
Owner-occupant real-estate, build-out, and 10-year equipment are the SBA-eligible use cases. CDC + bank partnership, 10% owner-equity injection, fixed-rate long-term CDC tranche, 25-year amortization on the real-estate line, 9–12 month second advance on construction / build-out.
Close in 6–12 weeks · long-term / fixed-rate path
Deal-size bands
Three deal-shape bands the desk sizes a startup file against.
A med-spa startup file sizes to a small-floor soft-tissue practice on the low end, a multi-treatment-room full-service clinic on the mid-tier, and a multi-modality flagship or second-location on the high end. The desk sizes the equipment ticket against the device stack, the MCA against projected card volume, and the SBA 504 piece against the real-estate line + build-out pro-forma — one band per shape, with the per-tranche ticket ranges marked out.
Small-floor / laser boutique
$25k – $250k total
A soft-tissue single-treatment practice opening on a one-suite floor with a hydrafacial platform + a starter laser. Equipment financing runs $80–180k; MCA bridges $20–60k for inventory and Q1 working capital; the file rarely needs SBA 504 unless the operator is buying the real estate outright.
Mid-tier / full-service med-spa
$250k – $900k total
A multi-treatment-room practice funded to the device stack (lasers, RF/microneedling, possibly body contouring) plus the working-capital bridge on a 60–90 day opening ramp. The SBA pre-screen matters here if the suite is owner-occupied and the build-out is meaningfully sized.
Flagship / second-location group
$900k – $2.5M+ total
A multi-modality flagship clinic or a second-location build with the full device stack, a 9–12 month second-advance build-out, and a working-capital MCA sized to the projected card volume in month one. SBA 504 is the long-form / fixed-rate / owner-occupant path on this scale.
Qualifying profile
Operator intent + collateral + projected card volume — not trailing P&L.
On a startup file there is no trailing P&L or patient book to read — the desk sizes the file against three readouts: owner FICO + skin-in-the-game + 51% owner-occupancy on SBA 504, the equipment ticket against the device collateral, and the working-capital MCA against the projected card volume and a 30–60 day operating reserve. The six signals below cover the file the desk reads on intake to size the three tranches together.
Operator intent
Owner + skin-in-the-game
FICO · 51% occ · 10% injection
Owner FICO + skin-in-the-game
680+ FICO · 10% owner injection
A personal credit file with 680+ FICO and no recent charge-offs is the clean read across all three tickets. SBA 504 reads the buyer-side injection against the real-estate line — 10% on a single-suite acquisition is the typical read; 15–20% on a new-build / expansion.
Owner-operator intent on a startup
Operator occupies the asset post-open
Both SBA 504 and the working-capital lines read the file as an owner-operator — not an investment asset. A startup that intends to passively run through a manager without a sub-practitioner license fails at intake. The 51% owner-occupancy rule on SBA 504 is the gating constraint on the real-estate line.
Collateralized
Equipment + build-out line items
Device · real-estate · build-out
Build-out pro-forma + build-out line items
A TI / soft-cost / equipment pro-forma
For SBA 504 the file carries a build-out pro-forma: TI, leasehold improvements, soft costs, the long-term equipment line, and the lease / real-estate line item the deck prices against. The 9–12 month second advance funds the construction as it bills out — the desk sizes to the pro-forma, not to the LOI.
Equipment-secured collateral on the device
No blanket UCC on the practice
Equipment financing is collateralized against the device itself, not against the practice — no blanket UCC, no general lien on the entity. The desk sizes the equipment ticket to the per-device useful life and the device-side pricing at invoice value, leaving the working-capital line available for inventory + payroll.
Projected card volume
MCA sizing + cash reserves
Funding sized to model · not to LOI
Projected card volume vs MCA estimate
Sized to projected processor volume
The MCA desk sizes the working-capital line to a conservative haircut against the projected card volume in the first six months — not to the practice plan. Owner-operators who walk the desk a realistic 60–80% haircut on the model get the cleanest read on the working-capital side; over-built projections fail on the factor-rate pricing.
Cash reserves for the opening 90 days
Enough to cover ops until MCA lands
The desk reads a 30–60 day operating reserve into the file as the bridge that covers the gap before the working-capital line prices. A practice plan that bakes in either an MCA bridge or the owner's cash into the model is the clean read; a plan that needs the MCA on day one without a reserve is the broken read.
“But the practice has no revenue yet” — the underwriting read
Operator intent + collateral + projected card volume rather than trailing P&L.
On a startup file the desk does not have a trailing revenue file or a patient book to read — so the read is on operator intent (FICO + skin-in-the-game + 51% owner-occupancy on the SBA 504 read), collateral (the device on equipment financing, the owner-occupant real-estate on SBA 504), and projected card volumeon MCA. The desk prices the SBA 504 second-mortgage and the working-capital MCA against the same projected card volume, but neither desk reads a trailing P&L on the file.
Parallel timeline
MCA leads (week 1–2), equipment (week 2–3), SBA 504 closes at month 2–3.
The three tickets run in parallel on the same intake, but the working-capital MCA leads by a week because it prices against projected card volume rather than the real-estate appraisal. Equipment financing closes in parallel with MCA; SBA 504 closes with the suite at month 2–3 and the second CDC advance lands 9–12 months later as the build-out bills out. The five steps below are what the desk reads on every bundled-med-spa-startup file.
Working-capital MCA leads the file
MCA closes fastest because the desk sizes it to projected card volume — and the owner-operator underwriting on the file is the gating constraint, not the practice plan. The MCA funds the inventory + the Q1 payroll + the marketing push on a startup file as soon as the processor statements land on intake.
Week 1 – 2
Equipment financing runs alongside MCA
Equipment financing closes in parallel — the device tickets funded for opening month, the per-device amortization set to the useful life on the file. Either before or after MCA close, the device ticket and the working-capital line both underwrite in the same week; the owner-operator package lands in front of the opening equipment vendor.
Week 2 – 3
SBA pre-screen + size-cap confirmation
The SBA pre-screen is the long pole on the file — the SBA confirms the size standard (revenue or employees, never gross assets — see below), the affiliate rules, and the 51% owner-occupancy rule. Lender-side delays here back up the closing date by weeks on a startup file.
Week 3 – 5
Bank + CDC underwriting, 504 debenture sale
The bank senior and the CDC second-mortgage both underwrite in parallel. The CDC sells the debenture on the secondary market at a fixed rate pegged to the 10-year Treasury at the sale window. The bank closes in parallel with the senior piece; both desks return a conditional term sheet before closing.
Week 5 – 10
First advance + soft-open (month 3 – 4)
Closing funds the bank senior + the first CDC advance — typically ~50% of project against TI and the long-term equipment. The second advance (the remaining 40% against soft costs and the build-out as it bills out) lands 9–12 months later. The practice soft-opens at month 3–4 once the first advance funds and the equipment ticket runs.
Week 6 – 12
MCA funds the bridge until 504 closes. The three tickets are sized together on the same intake, but MCA leads because it closes against the projected card volume rather than the real-estate appraisal. Borrow the working-capital line from /merchant-cash-advance, the device ticket from /equipment-financing, and the owner-occupant long-form / fixed-rate piece from /sba-504— on one coordinated intake.
Send the file to the desk
One short form. The startup context prefilled.
Tell us the clinic, the project, and the situation — opening or acquiring the practice. We respond inside one business day with a routing read and an equipment + MCA + 504 sizing estimate against the per-tranche collateral above. Submit the intake with the “opening or acquiring a practice” tag carried by ?source=startup-funding so the underwriting desk reads the startup context first.
On the Review step of /apply: the notes textarea is prefilled with “I'm opening or acquiring a med-spa practice — ” . Edit freely; the desk reads whatever is in the field at submission.
Independent vertical-credit desk · MedGuild Capital is not a lender. Per-tranche sizing bands, qualifying profile, and parallel-timeline reads above are illustrative of the desk's first-pass sizing — not an offer to fund, not a comment on any applicant's specific file, and not a guarantee of term-sheet outcomes from any listed SBA-lender / CDC / MCA partner. The 504 piece, the equipment financing ticket, and the working-capital MCA close against three different underwriting desks on the same intake — not in a single coordinated bid.
Acquiring an existing practice (LOI + patient book) instead of opening greenfield? Read practice acquisition for the 3-way capital stack (buyer DP / bank senior / SBA CDC) and the 60–90 day close.
The notes field on /apply reads the existing intake pattern — a 2,000-character free-text notes textarea on the Review step, prefilled with “I'm opening or acquiring a med-spa practice — ” . Edit, expand, or replace with the specifics the desk reads first.