CLEAR DATA REPORT · PUBLISHED OCTOBER 2026 · COVERS 2015–2025
Eleven years of small business funding, from Clear’s own funded deals: how much businesses received, which industries borrowed, what they used the money for and how often they came back for more. All data is anonymized.
This report covers every year from 2015 through 2025. Full-year 2026 figures will be added in early 2027.
2015 to 2017 are combined because each of those years had fewer than 30 funded deals.
| Year | Median deal | Middle 50% of deals | Under $50K | $250K+ | New clients who came back | Largest industry |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015–17 | $71K | $36K–$106K | 24% | 7% | — | — |
| 2018 | $61K | $30K–$126K | 42% | 5% | 61% | Healthcare & dental |
| 2019 | $60K | $34K–$100K | 41% | 7% | 42% | Healthcare & dental |
| 2020 | $70K | $37K–$119K | 32% | 8% | 34% | Healthcare & dental |
| 2021 | $72K | $35K–$108K | 36% | 10% | 68% | Technology & telecom / Healthcare & dental |
| 2022 | $60K | $34K–$150K | 36% | 11% | 52% | Healthcare & dental |
| 2023 | $100K | $40K–$200K | 28% | 20% | 45% | Construction & trades |
| 2024 | $70K | $40K–$150K | 33% | 9% | 54% | Professional & business services |
| 2025 | $124K | $55K–$250K | 18% | 26% | 49% | Professional & business services |
The data falls into four periods.
The median funded deal stayed between $60,000 and $72,000 from 2015 through 2022. It then rose to $100,000 in 2023, eased to $70,000 in 2024 and climbed to $124,000 in 2025, more than double the 2022 level.
In 2018, 42% of deals were under $50,000 and 5% were $250,000 or more. By 2025, 18% were under $50,000 and 26% were $250,000 or more.
Share of deals under $50,000
42%41%32%36%36%28%33%18%20182019202020212022202320242025Share of deals of $250,000 or more
5%7%8%10%11%20%9%26%20182019202020212022202320242025
51% of businesses funded through Clear later came back for additional funding, and 31% were funded three or more times. The typical gap between a first and second funding was about four months.
By the year a business was first funded, the share that came back has ranged from 34% (2020) to 68% (2021). 54% of businesses first funded in 2024, and 49% of those first funded in 2025, have already come back.
Short term loan products make up about 48% of funded deals. Lines of credit account for about 22%, long term loan products 19% and specialty finance 11%. The mix is broadly similar from year to year.
Learn more about short term loans, merchant cash advances, lines of credit and term loans.
Healthcare and dental practices were the largest group of borrowers in 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2022. Since 2023, construction and trades and professional and business services have led.
Across all eleven years, healthcare and dental made up 22% of deals, construction and trades 18% and professional and business services 15%.
Industry guides: construction, medical practices, dental practices, manufacturing, retail, technology and restaurants.
Professional services ($100,000) and construction and trades ($92,000) had the largest median deals from 2015 to 2025. Restaurants ($45,000) and healthcare and dental practices ($50,000) had the smallest.
Working capital was the top use of funds over the period, at 28% of stated uses, followed by debt consolidation or refinancing (16%), expansion (14%) and equipment (11%).
Expansion was the leading reason in 2018 at 35%. It has since given way to working capital and debt consolidation, which reached 18% to 19% of stated uses in 2024 and 2025.
Funding is not reserved for perfect credit. From 2022 to 2025, the median credit score of funded business owners was 703. About half (51%) scored 700 or higher, while 25% scored below 650.
Most funded businesses are well established. The median business had been operating for about 11 years when it was funded, and 17% had been open for less than five years. The median business reported annual sales of about $1.3 million.
Credit scores and annual sales are the most recent figures on file for each business, so we report them for 2022 to 2025 combined rather than year by year.
Credit score of funded business owners, 2022–2025
<60011%600-64914%650-69924%700-74926%750+25%Years in business at funding, 2022–2025
<2 years2%2-5 years15%5-10 years27%10-20 years31%20+ years26%
California (14%) and Texas (13%) led from 2015 to 2025, followed by Florida (7%), New York (6%), Pennsylvania (6%) and New Jersey (5%).
One of my major vendors was slow to pay and I was having a hard time making payroll. Clear was able to quickly get me approved for a merchant cash advance. The terms were much better than I found elsewhere and I had funds in my account the very next day. Thank you Clear!
How the data was collected, what the terms mean and how to use it.
Every figure comes from small business financing deals that Clear arranged through its network of 100+ lenders, taken from our own deal records. It is not a survey and it does not include applications that were not funded.
Funded deals from 2015 through December 31, 2025. 2015 to 2017 are combined because each of those years had fewer than 30 funded deals. Full-year 2026 figures will be added in early 2027.
A handful of very large deals can pull an average far away from what a typical business receives. The median is the deal in the middle: half of deals were larger and half were smaller, so it better reflects a normal funding experience.
Every figure we publish is based on at least 30 funded deals or businesses. Where a group is smaller than that, such as single industries within a single year, we combine years or leave it out rather than publish an unreliable number.
Industries and uses of funds are recorded in free text, so we group them into consistent categories using the same rules for every year. Percentages are shares of deals where that field was recorded. The product mix is an approximate breakdown of all funded deals by product type, which is broadly similar from year to year.
It is the share of businesses that received additional funding through Clear after their first deal, such as a renewal, an additional advance or a different product. For a given year, it covers businesses first funded that year, with repeat funding counted through October 2026. Businesses funded more recently have had less time to come back.
Clear’s average time to fund is 1.2 days.
Yes. The data is free to use under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Please cite it as the Clear Small Business Funding Report and link to the page you used. Journalists and researchers can reach us through our contact page.
