Endeavor establishes a loan matching program for minority-led small businesses in the St. Louis Metro area.

Gardner Capital, a Dallas-based private equity firm and alternative investment platform specializing in multifamily housing and renewable energy development and investment, is expanding its partnership with Kiva to include a loan matching program for the St. Louis area to accelerate minority-led small businesses access to finance, with the initial goal of providing funding to at least 100 minority-led small businesses in the St. Louis metro area annually.

Gardner Capital is partnering with Kiva through Gardner Capital’s GCRE Upward Mobility Fund to accelerate minority-led small business access to finance in St. Louis and will initially focus on supporting BIPOC small businesses in the St. Louis Metro area and provide a revolving fund to match loans raised on Kiva’s crowd-funding platform – both increasing the total funding available and accelerating the speed of funding loans for entrepreneurs.

“We couldn’t be more excited to expand our partnership with Kiva and I am particularly excited that we are able to bring this program to my adopted hometown of St. Louis,” says Michael Gardner, founder of the GCRE Upward Mobility Fund and CEO of Gardner Capital. “While our initial goal of funding at least 100 minority-led small businesses in St. Louis in the next year might sound modest, we expect to meet, exceed and then increase that goal each and every year…and then just keep growing it from there.”

This recent commitment from the GCRE Upward Mobility Fund is a part of Gardner Capital’s broader commitment to provide more than $5mm in capital to support Upward Mobility in financially excluded or historically underserved communities through a variety of programs and partnerships including direct equity investments, venture and seed capital, low interest soft funding, grants, and other funding.

Potential borrowers are encouraged to visit Kiva’s Borrower Page for more information.