Dealstruck
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Dealstruck was a Carlsbad, California-based online lender for small and medium-sized businesses, founded in July 2012 by CEO Ethan Senturia and CTO Russell McLoughlin. Positioned as a mid-prime lender filling the gap between cheap-but-hard-to-get bank loans and small, expensive alternative loans, it offered term loans up to $250,000 plus asset-based and inventory lines of credit up to $500,000, funding approved loans within 48 hours. It operated in 43 states, raised an $8 million Series A led by Trinity Ventures alongside a $50 million credit facility, and lent more than $50 million since inception.
02 / Dealstruck FAILURE REASONS
Failure reasons
Dealstruck failed because the online lending industry environment deteriorated and investor capital slowed. The company stopped originating new loans in 2016 and went out of business late that year. Co-founder and CEO Ethan Senturia later wrote a book about the journey from founding through dissolution, candidly documenting his own shortcomings and the reasons Dealstruck did not make it.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Operations ended
Dealstruck ended operations.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
In July 2012, Ethan Senturia and Russell McLoughlin founded Dealstruck in Carlsbad, California, as a mid-prime online lender serving small businesses stuck between bank loans and expensive alternative credit.
- 02
The company raised an $8 million Series A led by Trinity Ventures plus a $50 million credit facility led by Brevet Capital, bringing lending capacity past $100 million; it became the fastest online direct lender to surpass $50 million lent.
- 03
In 2016, hit by a deteriorating industry environment and a slowdown in investor capital, Dealstruck stopped originating new loans while continuing to service existing clients.
- 04
Dealstruck went out of business in late 2016. Senturia later published a book about the founding-to-dissolution journey. No bankruptcy filing was reported. No reliable loss figure was disclosed, so no loss amount is recorded.