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Miguel Fernandez

Miguel Fernandez is co-founder and chief executive of Capchase, a New York-based fintech that provides non-dilutive growth capital to recurring-revenue software and hardware companies [1]. Before founding Capchase, Fernandez worked in management consulting for large telecommunications, banking, and retail clients, then joined a software company as its first salesperson, eventually running its sales, customer success, and international expansion functions [2][3]. In that role he identified the problem that would later define Capchase: buyers wanted to pay monthly while the software vendor needed cash upfront to cover fixed costs, a mismatch that pushed vendors toward steep annual discounts to secure upfront payment [2]. He has said the vendor was effectively forced to act as a bank for its customers, or else push the customer into that role, and that this point-of-sale friction was the germ of Capchase's business model [3].

Fernandez developed the idea further while attending Harvard Business School, where he met one of his eventual co-founders; the founding team spent roughly six months testing ideas in two-week research sprints before settling on the concept that became Capchase in 2020 [2]. The original product let software companies sign customers to annual contracts while allowing those customers to pay monthly, letting vendors collect full contract value upfront and avoid discounting [2][3]. According to Fernandez, Capchase built its own balance sheet from inception, working over time with private credit funds, banks, asset managers, and investment banks rather than solely relying on outside financing partners [3].

Under his leadership, Capchase has since shifted its core business from working-capital financing for software firms toward equipment financing, moving from software-only deals to bundled software-and-hardware financing (covering categories such as telematics, fleet management, surveillance cameras, and robotics) and eventually to standalone equipment financing [3]. Fernandez describes this migration as a market-driven progression, with contract terms lengthening from twelve to as long as sixteen months as the company expanded its offering [3]. He has stated that Capchase has operated for about five years, facilitated approximately $1.5 billion in financing, and expanded internationally into the United States, Canada, and Europe, entering markets such as the UK and Ireland quickly while avoiding larger, more heavily regulated markets like Germany and France due to localization costs [3]. He characterizes Capchase's go-to-market approach as vendor-centric, embedding its financing tools directly into a vendor's sales workflow, such as CRM widgets or AI agents inside communication platforms, so that sales staff can qualify and quote financing within minutes rather than routing deals through a separate third party [3]. He also notes that the company's average deal size falls in the low hundreds of thousands of dollars, with individual transactions ranging from roughly $2,500 to several million dollars [3]. Fernandez has said the company employs about 90 people across offices in New York, San Francisco, Madrid, and Barcelona, with engineering concentrated in Spain [3]. Reflecting on his early sales career, Fernandez has said that despite initial discomfort with cold-calling, the experience taught him that selling underlies nearly all interactions and that hiring standards should never be relaxed even during periods of rapid growth [2].

Founded

Insights & ideas

Miguel Fernandez frames Capchase's origin around a concrete point-of-sale problem he witnessed as an early sales hire at a SaaS company: customers wanted to pay monthly while the vendor needed cash upfront, forcing heavy discounting so customers would commit annually and prepay [2]. His core thesis is that either the vendor or the buyer ends up "playing bank" under flexible payment terms, and Capchase resolves this by supplying non-dilutive financing so vendors get paid upfront while buyers pay in installments [1]. He describes deliberately building Capchase as a balance-sheet business from day one, working with private credit funds, banks, and asset managers, because it gives flexibility and a better user experience [1]. He also emphasizes a vendor-centric go-to-market approach, embedding financing into vendors' sales processes rather than running direct sales to end buyers [1], and describes the company's evolution from software working capital into software-hardware bundles and full equipment financing as a larger, tech-advantaged opportunity [1].

He also argues that selling is a universally valuable, transferable skill, useful in any interaction involving persuasion or negotiation, not just sales roles [2], and stresses maintaining hiring standards even while scaling quickly [2].

Media & appearances

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