CHICAGO, IL – Da Lobsta, a quick service lobster roll eatery with locations in Chicago’s Gold Coast and West Loop neighborhoods, is growing fast. In 2014 alone, Da Lobsta launched Chicago’s first and only lobster food truck and put plans in motion to expand to River North, one of Chicago’s hottest neighborhoods.

In order to raise the funding needed to expand their business, Da Lobsta turned to Bolstr, a marketplace where emerging consumer, retail and manufacturing businesses can access growth capital from accredited investors. In April 2014, Da Lobsta successfully raised$70,000 in less than a week on Bolstr in order to take their business on the road with a new food truck.

The Da Lobsta food truck launch was so successful that Da Lobsta was able to pay back their entire loan to investors, plus a return, in only seven months, well ahead of schedule.

“With Bolstr, I was able to access funding without giving up equity and gain access to an investor pool that would otherwise be very hard to find. In a time where traditional bank loans are almost never an option, Bolstr was a dream come true for a budding business like mine,” explains J Wolf, owner of Da Lobsta.

When it came time to grow once again and open their third brick and mortar location in River North, Da Lobsta returned to Bolstr to fund the raise. On November 19, 2014, Da Lobsta raised $150,000 overnight, from the same pool of investors who funded their initial raise, rounding out their total growth funding raised in 2014 to $220,000.

“After successfully generating $70,000 in capital in under four days, raising funding on Bolstr a second time was a no brainer. Using Bolstr was the quickest way to ensure I would have the funding needed to sign a lease for a new location,” continues Wolf.

An Enticing Opportunity for Investors

In 2014 Bolstr surpassed $200,000 in investor payouts from businesses on the platform, with no defaults to date. Additionally, Bolstr now facilitates an average of $20,000 in cash payouts to investors each month. Nearly every current business on Bolstr is projected to pay back their loans ahead of schedule, with three businesses having repaid their loans plus a return in their entirety.

Bolstr is an attractive marketplace and it shows; every deal on Bolstr has been successfully funded in less than five days, with some deals completed in less than 24 hours. Furthermore, every deal has close to 50% of new investors participating.

Developing businesses have received over $500,000 in growth capital on Bolstr and projections expect that number to double in the coming months.

About Bolstr
Based in Chicago and founded in 2011 by former investment-banking analysts Charlie Tribbett and Larry Baker, Bolstr is a marketplace where emerging consumer, retail and manufacturing businesses can access growth capital from accredited investors. Every raise on Bolstr uses an innovative revenue share investment structure, where businesses can access $25,000 – $250,000 to invest in growth, retain 100% of their equity, and make flexible monthly payouts to investors, since they are sized proportionally to their revenue. Investors then receive revenue-based payouts until they make a multiple back on their investment. For more information, please visit www.bolstr.com, Facebook or Twitter or watch How it Works.