Business Resources Resource Map

Kiva Dayton

Greater access to capital is critical to continuing the growing momentum in the Dayton startup community. Funding can’t just be for high-growth or technology-based startups – businesses of all types need to have opportunities for funding. To provide another outlet to support Dayton small businesses, in 2017 Start Downtown launched Kiva Dayton – a collaborative effort between several startup ecosystem partners to utilize the international platform of Kiva as a lending outlet for local small businesses and startups.

What is Kiva?
Kiva is like crowd-funding, but instead it’s crowd-lending – after your loan is repaid, you can use the same dollars to support another small business. Loans are 0% interest and are repaid by the small business over a period of 6-36 months depending on the loan size. Businesses that apply for lending through Kiva have 30 days to reach their fundraising goal. If they don’t reach their goal, they don’t receive funding.