Clearco  Reviews 

Great experience, account manager exceptional, dashboard very informative and easy to us

Yes, in comparison to traditional banks, Clearco makes the process easy. But you’re signing up for the devil you don’t know and you wonder what they do with the HIGH interest AND cut of YOUR sales they take. And there’s a review below that articulates the ClearAngel program - it’s true.

They’ll deny you the first loan but try to cross sell you into the CA program. And you have to ask to figure out the conditions, which is even if you pay back everything you have to give 2% of your sales to them for 4 years. I’m sorry, no.

This is what I learned in the process of applying:
1. The card system is a joke. When I asked specific questions I found it to be a barrier and Clearco uses “data” and “AI” to determine if my purchase is valid? It’s my business. It’s clear they want to “protect their investment” but it’s not a human way to do it.
2. The sales teams are aggressive - is their training to watch Boiler Room? It’s like having a stalker. I won’t put their name cause their being groomed and rewarded in a toxic environment. See next point.
3. After reading the Glassdoor reviews, you realize how toxic, racist and sexist this organization is, despite the two main cofounders being a woman and a POC. Aggressive cold call sales. One person wrote “great way to learn the psychology of cold calls”. You can always tell when a company nudges employees to put in good reviews after the true posts come out. The one that made me the most upset was about family.
4. I did a lot of googling. The line that got to me was “democratizing access to capital”. One article with the co-founders Michele Romanow and Andrew D'Souza indicated that they use “AI” over humans making decisions. A) Humans create AI and influence it and B) to try to differentiate yourself from Venture Capital funding is irrelevant. You are preying on people who have little margin for error and in your elitist tower, handing out money but shackling their labour to you. And in another video with video of Tanay Delima VP of Product (another cofounder?). He sort of bumbles his way through very basic business practices that every e-commerce platform “track your goals in GA and iterate your message to get more conversions”. I’m sure Clearco would say, they can help your brand with “their data driven insights”. But that’s what everyone says. We get 5 seconds to make an impression on a customer, they had 5 minutes and couldn’t differentiate themselves.
5. And after more digging, I saw they had an app. No one during the sales pitch said anything about this. Still branded under their old name with 20 reviews (on Apple). How much is invested into maintaining apps that only show a balance? Is this the kind of investment and strategic planning Clearco does?

My interest piqued because of their ads. I didn’t think any lender in late stage capitalism is entirely ethical but all the diverse ads got to me. But under a real lens and with minimal interaction, absolutely not. My ethics can’t bend that much.

And Louie, I know you’re doing your job but don’t reply to this.

Update 12.7.22
It has been over a year.
I have still not heard from ClearBanc or ClearCo. A year later, I have realized the ClearCo.’s intention of initially reaching out to me was to obtain my data and financial information for their own benefit. Although I did not receive the promised funding from the ClearAngel program, my Quickbooks account, business checking accounts, etc. were still connected. With this being said,I believe ClearCo.’s intention was to obtain my business information to inflate their revenues to investors and make their company appear more credible by using the information from accounts I connected in their portal. It is truly disappointing that this company is taking advantage of small business owners.

Update 11.9.21
I emailed ClearBanc as advised in the comment they posted underneath this post. I still have not received any response from ClearBanc or ClearAngel or anyone associated with the company. It is clear this company is purposely focused on exploiting and taking care of small businesses for their own personal gain.
This company should be held accountable for the distress they have caused amongst small business owners.
Original Review:
I had an awful experience with ClearAngel. ClearAngel reached out to ME via email, inviting me to participate in their angel investor program, promising to fund my business with an initial payment of $10,000 after the first onboarding meeting. After going back and forth over email, I was prompted to connect all of my business data and information to their online platform in addition to signing an executed contract, assuring that ClearAngel did their "due diligence" when accepting me into their program.
After having the first onboarding meeting, I was supposed to receive the initial $10,000 in business funding. After not hearing from ClearBank for a few days, I decided to reach out and had no luck with a response. I have tried calling in which I am told that a supervisor will call me back, which never happened. This went on for a 2 and a half month period.
I even submitted an extensive business plan to them.
Essentially, ClearAngel & ClearBank mislead me to believe I would receive this business funding just so they could get ahold of my data and use it to their benefit. I made decisions based of a contractual promise that never happened. The most discerning part is they reached out to me, got my hopes up and accepted me into their program.
I work really hard on my business so this to me is extremely disrespectful. My attorney believes I can press charges for misleading information and deception.
This company targets small businesses to use their data to inflate their sales, revenues, and important financials to make themselves look successful.
The least they could have done was responded to my inquiries, but they ceased all communication. This really upsets me as I thought I was going to be able to use this funding to scale my business.
I hope this company realizes and gets consequences for the adverse impact they have by misleading small business owners.
Updated | Added 10.19.21
The response provided by ClearBanc to this complaint on TrustPilot has nothing to do with the issue at hand. I was misled to believe I would be receiving a grant of $10,000 to assist scaling my business. ClearBanc has still failed to provide a reason as to why they misled, made me sign a contract without upholding their contractual agreement of issuing my payment after inviting me to join their ClearAngel Program. Clearly, I would like to receive the $10,000 that was promised to me as I was hoping to use this to scale and grow my business.

We are so happy to have been referred to Clear Co. Their funding has really helped us with our small business to be able to order our stock without compromising our cash flow. Constantine Mitsios went above and beyond, he explained the process to us in a manner that was easy to understand, he assisted us with the application process and we were so happy wth the outcome.

I love Clearco. It has been the best decision for us as it helped us scale a lot in the last 12 months. We were able to see so many projects come to life!

I would recommend Clearco to any entrepreneur I know!

I just signed a second contract with Clearco and I am very happy with my decision. I was extremely hesitant at first and quite afraid of the remittance rate eating up some of my profit margin. I went with a conservative choice of signing the lowest offer with the smallest remittance rate and all is fine. It has definitely been easier to obtain capital from clearco than in a bank. I tend to ne skeptical. I didn’t find a catch yet. I would do this again and I would recommend that option to my best friend.

The Team has been exceptional at meeting our Company's financing objectives with great options that have been delivered as promised. They have made the DD process seamless. Great product and platform.

I’ve taken funds from them on several occasions as it helped our cash flow and was worth the cost. Their transaction reporting is just shocking though and contains very little information. Furthermore their support is bordering on moronic in my opinion and unhelpful at best. Because of this I won’t ever be using them again and couldn’t recommend them.

Edit: Re Clearbanc response - If you actually meant what you said in your response, then why am I still waiting for a competent and honest response from the support team?

A super efficient and extremely helpful team at ClearCo! This is by far the best service I have come across in 10 years of business for cashflow assistance. Thank you Team ClearCo!

Decided to write a review because I'm sure a lot of you are seeing the same sponsored ads that I am and there are people in the comments raving about their service...but when you visit that person's profile, it appears to, at minimum, be a spam account.

So, after seeing numerous ads for this, I decided to apply. I am in the process of expanding and any "little" bit is helpful. Applied on 8/6 and after not hearing a response by 8/8, I decided to shoot an email. I found out that, even though the portal was telling me that my application was complete, it actually was not and that they needed 6 months worth of bank statements PLUS another document signature. Went ahead and sent it right over.

Today (8/13), I was emailed and told that I would need to provide 2 additional bank statements, a screenshot of my current bank balance, and some context on the current drop in sales. Got everything over to them and within a few hours, I was advised that it was declined. No problem. But here's where it gets a bit funny to ME:

They immediately went into a sales pitch on applying, instead, for the Angel portion of the funding that they offer. With it, you get $10k + for funding, but the FINE print says that they get 2% of your sales. Doesn't sound that bad, right?

Well, when you speak to a customer service rep, they advise that they get 2% of your sales for FOUR YEARS, even if you completely pay off the funding.

I see so many people on their facebook page advising that they met all qualifications but were denied anyway (same situation here). But privately, at least two people advised that they were also offered funding via the Angel option (which of course makes sense because who wouldn't want 2% of a companies daily sales for FOUR years, even after they've recouped what was "invested").

I'll tell ya what....before the pandemic, I NEVER considered business loans (outside of doing capital options with ecommerce platforms). But these companies are doing ANYTHING they can to take advantage of what's going on right now. I'm thankful that I have wonderful support surrounding me but baby if I absolutely NEEDED it, I know that I'd be robbed blind.

Edited 12/15: ClearBanc is doing everything to try to get my review removed. But I stand 100% by what I said and will not be withdrawing the review. I had a real experience with their company and everybody needs to know.

Edit (9/21/2021): I see that I received a reply that I am unable to respond to so I’ll just say my piece here.

No, I will not be sending you all a private message with regards to this because for one, I did that when you sent an email (from Mark D Paola) asking for feedback and no response was provided then.

Two, after speaking with two additional people, I found out that the funding you DO provide has major stipulations and that you routinely deny transactions based on that. You’re not given funds in your own bank account; you’re provided a “Clear Card” where you deposit the funds and YOU determine how they’re spent.

Again, your company is trash. It’s absolutely abhorrent how much you’re taking advantage of business owners with your business model. You bank on either the fact that some folks simply don’t read OR their desperation because they know their business is in jeopardy. You also delete comments on your Instagram and Facebook that question the integrity of your company. So no, louis. I will not personally reach out to you for an issue that your company can’t resolve. You guys are absolute trash and I’m glad I do read and research.

Absolutely the worst company we have ever done business with. After submitting lots of documentation and connecting all of our accounts we were offered three different advances. We took the largest advance at 90k and started using their virtual card right away. We made two purchases and attempted several others only to be declined by the company saying that it was not an authorized purchase. A few days went by and the next thing we knew the card was taken away from us for no apparent reason. We then started receiving emails saying that they were going to debit our account for transactions that were appearing in our account. However upon further review we noticed that these transactions weren't even in our history at all. So of course we contacted them and let them know that hey these transactions are not ours and then that's when they contacted us and said they were having some kind of tech issue with our account. 4 weeks later we are still dealing with the same issue with no resolution. They also have said based upon our current information that they are only going to allow for a 12 to $15,000 advance even though we were advanced 90k in the beginning. We asked how this could be possible as we sent them multiple screenshots from bank account sources as well as our Bigcommerce platform selling our average 35 to 40,000 per month in Revenue. This company needs to get their act together because they clearly have no idea what they're doing. Also who gives you a loan and then takes the loan back and gives you stipulations as to how you can use the money. Don't waste your time you're better off just getting a traditional business loan or personal loan for that matter as their interest rate was 18% Payback on every single transaction.

I had some issues to start with for transferring money to an overseas vendor but this has since been sorted out thanks to my account manager based in Australia. It took longer than I would have liked but we got there in the end. It's a great concept once we got it sorted out, I like that they take a % of the sales you make and funds were able to be sent to my vendor within 2 days once we sorted initial issues out. Would continue to work with this bank as it's a great working capital alternative

Absolutely amazing service from Clearco. We were in the mud with our cash flow for marketing and needed some help. In less then 2 days from start to finish we had our funds. Clearco has given us our confidence back and we are now kicking the goals we wanted. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

The application is quick and easy. Once approved, Clearco gives you a virtual card to use for your business with the agreed credit.

The dashboard is helpful, as you can see lots of data (repayments/money available etc.).

It's ok, legit for sure, basically a credit card advance. After a while though, after you see them take their cut off every sale, you tire of the whole thing. It's also a bit complicated to pay suppliers or use their credit card.

Very professional and simple to deal with. Very friendly people who actually want to help and support online start ups. Been a great experience so far.

Amazing service, really helps our business so much!
Jonathan my account manager is a top man!

Great, highly recommend

Have used Clearbanc for a couple of years. I would say their strength is supplying capital relatively quickly and painlessly, at a reasonable rate compared to other sources of funds. I did have an issue recently with a duplicate transaction that left me frustrated, but once I let them know, they went above and beyond to resolve the issue. Would recommend if you need quick and easy cash flow access.

Great company to work with. Easy, efficient and gets approved fast. Pierce and Aaron especially are incredible to deal with. Upmost professionalism and always there to help even in the harder times

Aaron was extremely helpful and diligent. A super easy process!