For middle-market CFOs, securing financing in 2025 means playing a high-stakes game of matchmaking.

Banks and private credit funds each bring distinct approaches to middle-market lending. Together, they represent a vast universe of capital solutions—each with their own qualification criteria, relationship requirements, and structural preferences.

This dual-track lending environment marks a stark departure from the straightforward bank relationships of decades past. Today’s CFO must simultaneously court multiple banks while evaluating an expanding universe of private credit options, each bringing distinct advantages and constraints to the table. The challenge isn’t just finding capital—it’s finding the right capital at the right terms without exhausting precious time and resources.

The complexity stems from structural shifts following the 2008 financial crisis. As banks adjusted to heightened regulatory scrutiny, private credit stepped in aggressively, creating today’s bifurcated market. While this expansion of options benefits borrowers, it demands sophisticated navigation of both traditional and alternative lending channels.

The lending revolution for middle-market companies paved the way for CAPX, designed to bridge this divide by streamlining connections with both banks and private credit funds. This innovation transforms a process that once took weeks into a streamlined 72-hour matching system, enabling finance leaders to spend less time searching for capital and more time deploying it strategically.

Here are five critical deal stages where automation is giving finance chiefs their time back:

1. Preliminary Underwriting & Capacity Sizing

Before engaging lenders, CFOs need precise insights into their borrowing capacity—a task traditionally mired in manual analysis. The cost is significant: Research from Gartner highlights that CFOs face increasing pressure to balance strategic leadership with operational demands, often spending significant portions of their time on tasks that could benefit from automation. Consulting giant Deloitte’s Signal Survey reports 60% of finance leaders’ hours go to operational duties rather than strategic initiatives.

Digital platforms like CAPX are changing this equation. By analyzing financials against standard lending metrics, CAPX quickly determines whether a company qualifies for a $20 million senior facility or a $50 million unitranche structure. This automation shifts CFOs’ focus from time-intensive analysis to evaluating real options, enabling faster and more strategic decisions.

2. Lender Sourcing & Vetting

With private credit’s explosive growth, the universe of potential lenders has expanded dramatically, far beyond what personal networks or traditional search methods can uncover. CAPX addresses this complexity with advanced filtering—matching borrowers to lenders based on deal size, industry focus, credit quality, and specific requirements like risk thresholds and sector specialization.

By combining vetted lender networks with data-driven algorithms, CAPX transforms what was once a weeks-long process into a streamlined workflow. It ensures CFOs can engage the right lenders efficiently while maintaining the human relationships critical to closing deals.

3. Pitching the Deal with Precision

Once borrowing capacity is established, presenting a uniform and effective credit thesis becomes the next critical step. This involves crafting a pitch that highlights the deal’s strengths and aligns with lenders’ risk tolerances, structural preferences, and sector focus. CAPX centralizes financial data and streamlines this process, ensuring consistency and clarity in borrower presentations.

By automating repetitive tasks, CAPX helps CFOs pitch with confidence and focus on strategy. This doesn’t just save time—it strengthens credibility with lenders, increasing the likelihood of securing favorable terms.

4. Eliminating Repetition with Smart Tools

Due diligence often creates bottlenecks, with repetitive questions and redundant tasks slowing progress. CAPX eliminates this friction through built-in tools like its Q&A mechanism, which centralizes and automates responses to lender queries. This ensures lenders quickly access the information they need without requiring multiple calls or duplicative conversations.

While datarooms are widely available, CAPX goes further by integrating data access with tools designed to reduce redundancy. This allows lenders to review materials, request clarifications, and make decisions faster—enabling CFOs to move deals forward without delays.

5. Term Sheets and Quick Evaluation

Once lenders are engaged, the ability to efficiently gather, compare, and evaluate term sheets becomes critical. CAPX centralizes submissions and presents term sheets in a side-by-side format, highlighting key variables like interest rates, fees, amortization schedules, and covenant requirements. This enables CFOs to quickly spot competitive offers while avoiding pitfalls like hidden fees or aggressive clauses.

A cohesive credit thesis enhances this stage by ensuring lenders fully understand the deal’s structure and value. CAPX simplifies borrower presentations, aligns lender preferences, and minimizes inconsistencies—positioning CFOs to negotiate effectively and secure the best possible terms.

The Bottom Line

While certain structures and covenants are standard across specific types of credit, the real difference lies in lenders’ varying risk appetites. These differences result in lenders offering more or less capital for the same credit profile or imposing varying levels of covenant flexibility. CAPX bridges this complexity by matching borrowers with lenders whose criteria align with their deal, ensuring CFOs can secure optimal terms efficiently.

The evolution of middle-market lending has created both opportunity and complexity. While the market offers more funding options than ever, evaluating dozens of lenders—each with unique terms and covenant structures—can consume weeks of valuable time. Automation platforms like CAPX are changing this equation, transforming labor-intensive processes into streamlined workflows. For CFOs, this shift from mechanics to strategy isn’t just about efficiency—it’s about securing the best terms in a market where every detail matters.

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Interested in learning more? Get in touch with the CAPX team to talk through your business capital needs, and where CAPX can help.