New Mexico small businesses can tap into $25M in SBA loans

Another $25 million in Small Business Administration loans is now available to New Mexico small businesses unable to secure traditional bank loans.

The nonprofit, state-launched New Mexico Small Business Investment Corp. has a new RBC Impact Fund that will target small businesses with annual revenue up to $7.5 million and less than 500 employees. The loans would be in amounts from $150,000 to $5 million.

“We are focusing on small businesses that are not able to get traditional loans,” said Russ

Cummins, executive director of NMSBIC, which the Legislature established in 2001 to provide equity and debt capital to small businesses.

The NMSBIC funding is available to any SBA loan lender in New Mexico, but the funding primarily will go to DreamSpring, Lendistr and Capital Impact Partners, which are all Community Development Financial Institution lenders that focus on lending to underserved markets.

“Our relationship with NMSBIC has been a transformational relationship in the last two years,” said DreamSpring CEO Anne Haines. “We have been able to get dollars in the hands of underserved entrepreneurs. [With the RBC Impact Fund], they have increased the liquidity of lenders in New Mexico to put more funds in the hands of entrepreneurs.”

NMSBIC is partnering with RBC Global Asset Management, the asset management division of Royal Bank of Canada. RBC Global Asset Management is buying the Small Business Administrationguaranteed loans and will manage the RBC Impact Fund for NMSBIC.

In the past two years during the pandemic, Albuquerque-based DreamSpring has lent more the $33.4 million in 1,460 loans to New Mexico small businesses. The new funding available through NMSBIC/RBC Global Asset Management will play a role as DreamSpring seeks to double its lending to small-business owners, Haines said.