A specialty financing company launched five years ago by Edward Bersoff, a well-known Greater Washington federal IT executive, has changed its name and raised $100 million.
PFF LLC is now known as Parabilis and has more cash on hand to loan to small and mid-size companies — many of them government contractors — that opted not to raise capital from traditional senior financial sources or have had difficulty doing so.
A Parabilis infusion is designed to help companies facing a near-term or intermediate funding requirement. That might stem from, for example, winning a large contract and bankrolling a startup payroll cycle. The Tysons company is led by CEO Bruce Lyman.
Bersoff launched PFF five years ago as a payroll financing facility for small and growing companies. The company provided loans of $25,000 to $2 million to fill a financing middle ground between factors and banks.
Factors are financial intermediaries that lend against accounts receivables, typically at annualized rates in the low 20 percent range. Banks can offer rates as low as 6 percent but are often reluctant to loan to the types of companies that PFF seeks as clients, those companies described above in financial transition.
Many of its customers are government contractors that, while not headquartered here, do most of their business in the region.
Bersoff has deep roots in the Greater Washington business community as the founder and former CEO of BTG Inc. and ATS Corp., two federal information technology contractors, and as a board member for numerous companies and nonprofits such as Holy Cross Health Inc.
The new company name comes from the classical Latin “parō,” meaning to obtain, prepare, provide.
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