Key Messages
- Cornbread Farm to Soul blends tradition and innovation, proving that a strong brand with clear values can scale responsibly when paired with the right financial partner.
- To support its expansion, the restaurant secured a tailored blend of mezzanine debt and community development financing from the Momentus Capital branded family of organizations, which enabled the founders to grow on their own terms and without giving up equity or personal guarantees.
- With flexible, non-dilutive capital, the business maintained full ownership and control while accessing the working capital needed for start-up, build-out, and expansion.
- Capital Impact Partners aligned the financing structure with Cornbread’s growth strategy and regional rollout plans.
- Each new Cornbread location supports local jobs and small-business activity, demonstrating how the right financing can strengthen both business performance and local economies.
Explore flexible financing options for your business growth. Contact us to discuss how mezzanine debt and community development loans can help you expand on your own terms.
Why Non-Dilutive Business Capital Means So Much to Small Businesses
To grow her business, Adenah knew the standard industry playbook: find capital, trade equity, and open your doors. But when Cornbread took off faster than expected, Adenah knew that traditional bank loans weren’t the right fit. She had seen how traditional business loans could limit small-business growth, offering little flexibility when entrepreneurs needed working capital or customized financing solutions. It was especially evident for those small businesses balancing expansion costs with daily operations. So, she decided to write a new playbook and sought alternative financing that would support expansion without requiring her business to give up ownership or personal guarantees.
Adenah and Zadie needed non-dilutive business capital that didn’t give up control of their success; alternative financing that aligned with their vision of sustainable, mission-driven growth. They ultimately chose Capital Impact Partners, part of the Momentus Capital branded family of organizations, because its mezzanine financing and community development lending approach offered the right balance of partnership, flexibility, and financing that matched their growth cycle without adding unnecessary risk or cost.
Capital Impact Partners offered the kind of blended solution that growing restaurants rarely find. That connection led them to work closely with National Senior Loan Officer Catherine Frazier and Investments leader Elisabeth Chasia, who helped shape a financing package customized to Cornbread’s growth cycle and long-term goals.
Flexible Growth Capital That Works for Small Business Owners
As a mission-driven organization and part of the Momentus Capital brand, Capital Impact Partners believes that small business owners, developers, and other local leaders are the engines of job creation and economic activity in communities across the country and therefore need financing tools to accomplish that. With flexible capital for entrepreneurs like Adenah and Zadie, Capital Impact Partners supplies financing that allows businesses like Cornbread the opportunity to succeed and their communities to thrive. Catherine and Elisabeth took the time to understand Cornbread’s commitment to community economic development. Elisabeth Chasia explained: “We look for businesses that strengthen local economies. Cornbread checked every box.”
Our Community Development Loan (CDL) and Impact Investment teams structured a tailored financial package combining new market tax credits and community development loans alongside mezzanine financing.
The CDL team primarily used a Quality Low-Income Community Investment (QLICI) for Cornbread. QLICI financing is a loan or equity investment that Capital Impact Partners lends to a qualifying business or project in an area experiencing low incomes under the New Market Tax Credit (NMTC) program. For the remainder of the money, the Impact Investments team offered small business mezzanine financing, which sits between traditional debt and equity. It was the perfect fit because it provided the critical working capital needed for expansion while allowing the founders to maintain 100 percent ownership and control. For growing businesses like Cornbread Farm to Soul, mezzanine financing provides access to working capital without requiring the owners to give up equity, making it ideal for expansion or equipment purchases. More importantly, it provides the working capital needed to expand responsibly and maintain steady operations during construction or scale-up periods.
This impact investment in a fast-growing restaurant brand and the accompanying community development lending provided the over $4.6 million in working capital Cornbread needed to support the existing restaurants and break ground on a new location in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn. The best part: Adenah and Zadie maintain control of their business.
“Not all money is good money,” Adenah said. “The investment from Momentus Capital was good money — the kind that lets us grow on our own terms.”
Ready to grow your business with flexible, non-dilutive capital?
Contact us to learn more about financing solutions through Capital Impact Partners.
