Debt financing has many benefits for startups, including: - You can invest your time and energy in growing the business instead of pitching equity investors for funding you may never secure. - You can grow sustainably, at a reasonable cost, managing smaller amounts of capital to move the business forward. - You maintain ownership and control without selling equity, which is often more costly in the long-run. Debt financing can give you a strategic advantage in your funding journey, as well. For example, bootstrapped startups frequently use debt to increase their ownership value at exit. By leveraging debt to gain enough traction and momentum to raise a big equity round, they avoid speculative early-stage valuations and costly equity grabs from VCs and angels. At later stages, startups can use debt financing as a bridge in between VC rounds, either funding runway to protect against a down round or to boost results before their next valuation. Try our Equity Dilution Calculator to see how you can benefit from raising capital with non-dilutive debt financing instead of selling equity.