Don Muir, CEO of Arc, on bringing technology to debt markets

Fintech One•On•One

Technology has impacted so many areas of lending but one niche that has remained a manual, human-powered process is middle market lending, where deals are typically $5 million to $100 million. These deals have been consummated on the golf course or at expensive dinners after often months of analysis and negotiation. That is not an efficient way to do business in 2025. Enter Arc.

My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Don Muir, the CEO and Co-Founder of Arc. Arc is first and foremost a technology company, providing startups and lenders the tools they need to manage their finances. Where Arc shines is in helping companies raise debt capital, they have built one of the most sophisticated systems on the market today to bring borrowers and lenders together to get deals done quickly and easily, even deals in the tens of millions of dollars.

In this podcast you will learn:

• The aha moment that led to the founding of Arc.
• Why banks are not interested in serving the lower middle market.
• Why they launched with a direct lending model.
• How their two-sided debt marketplace works.
• Details of their commercial banking offering.
• How they make lenders decisions easier.
• The range of deal sizes they are doing today.
• What they offer in their cash management platform.
• How the SVB collapse has impacted their business.
• How Arc Intelligence uses AI to helps lenders make decisions more efficiently.
• Why they have decided to focus exclusively on debt and not do equity.
• Why demand has been so strong for the last year or more.
• How Don is thinking about Arc long term.

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