BUSINESS NEWS - South Africa’s SME funding environment isn’t designed to meet the needs of the SME.
These small to medium enterprises are contributing 40% of GDP and employing 60% of the country's workforce but face a R350 billion funding gap because the funding models used to assess them were built for a different kind of business entirely.
Many successful SMEs with proven track records are being rejected for funding that they need to expand their businesses or invest in critical infrastructure, creating a gap between the perception of success and access to credit.
Bridgement was founded in 2016 to address this mismatch, solving for both specific and structural challenges facing the SME.
Often, SMEs are rejected for finance because the products don’t fit the need, so Bridgement has developed a wider range of products that are designed to match the actual cash flow realities of the SME. These include business loans, revolving credit and invoice finance options that are customised to the SME not the enterprise.
The second challenge is the gap between profit and cash flow. A business can show strong margins and still be declined because cash is not arriving consistently enough to service a loan.
The problem is structural: the Public Service Commission (PSC), citing National Treasury data, reported that in the second quarter of the 2025/26 financial year, national and provincial departments had 95,399 invoices older than 30 days - totalling R12.4 billion - still unpaid.
In the private sector, end-to-end payment cycles can exceed 150 days. Compounding this, traditional lenders require three years of audited financial statements to assess creditworthiness. Most SMEs simply haven't been around long enough to meet that threshold, let alone have the resources to commission the compilation of those financials.
Using live bank data and direct integrations with Xero, Sage and QuickBooks, Bridgement builds a real-time financial picture of an SME in minutes without requiring audited statements or lengthy admin processes.
This integration provides verified, real-time data that is more accurate and more current than any set of historical financial statements from the previous financial year. The model reads live bank data, which means it sees the SME’s operational reality for what it is.
Another challenge comes down to the personal credit histories of directors and shareholders as this feeds directly into how traditional lenders evaluate a business.
A director with overextended personal credit can affect a business approval even when the business is performing well. Bridgement's data-driven assessment model weighs the full financial picture of the business, not just the individual behind it.
"The technology and data exist to simplify access to funding," says Daniel Goldberg, founder and CEO of Bridgement. "We consume the financial data from accounting packages and bank accounts and use it to build a realistic picture of the business, which means a viable SME isn’t turned away because their paperwork isn’t perfect."
Since 2016, Bridgement has deployed more than R2 billion to South African SMEs based on realistic visibility into financial stability and by providing funding solutions that are relevant and specific.
Key insights:
- R12.4 billion in unpaid government invoices older than 30 days as at Q2 2025, up 17% quarter on quarter (National Treasury, March 2026)
- 150 days the typical end-to-end cash cycle for an SME supplying a large corporate
- R2 billion+ deployed to South African SMEs by Bridgement since 2016
- 3 cloud accounting platforms Bridgement is the only SME lender in South Africa with integration across Xero, Sage and QuickBooks
- Same day typical turnaround from application to funding decision
- Up to R10 million available within 24 hours.
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