Stratus Financial LLC this year added a $30 million credit line to fund the growth of its loan origination platform, which provides financing for student pilots seeking commercial flight training.
“With this enhanced liquidity, we are well-positioned to expand our offerings and continue providing exceptional service to both students and flight schools,” co-founder and Chief Executive Anthony Geraci, also CEO of Irvine-based law firm Geraci LLP, said in a statement.
Stratus is a lending firm that works solely with flight schools and investors to offer private loans and instructional funding. The company in 2023 ranked No. 1 on the Business Journal’s list of fastest-growing private companies in the small category, with $2.3 million in revenue for the 12-month period ended June 2023, up a whopping 4,209% from two years prior.
“This milestone underscores our strategic focus on broadening our capital partnerships, optimizing funding costs, and positioning Stratus for long-term success in private student lending,” Chief Investment Officer Alan Rios said about the new funding.
Back in February, Stratus said it partnered with its 300th flight school. Its network has doubled over the past two years from when the firm counted close to 150 flight school partners in the U.S.
“This expansion is critical to ensuring the aviation industry has a steady pipeline of qualified pilots to meet current and future needs,” according to the company.
Stratus reported the funding of almost 800 loans as of March since its founding in 2020.
“Reaching 300 flight school partners is a significant achievement for Stratus Financial, and it highlights the trust that schools across the nation place in our services,” Brandon Martini, chief operations officer and co-founder, added.
It has partnered with flight schools across 35 states and Puerto Rico and includes more than 260 FAA-chartered flight schools. The goal is to reach all 50 states, according to Martini.
Found an Untapped Market
Martini and Geraci, who are both FAA certificated flight and ground instructors, came together in 2020 to form Stratus after Martini initially had trouble getting funding for the flight school he founded in 2016, called NextGen Flight Academy in Riverside.
He decided to start offering loans to his own students, and Geraci encouraged him to expand the financing program to other schools in need of funding. The pair started Stratus with their own capital and eventually added three more schools in the first five months.
Geraci is tasked with securing credit lines and starting capital raising ventures to fund the firm’s flight school loans while Martini oversees day-to-day operations and strategic initiatives.
Stratus works mostly with smaller flight schools that find difficulty in accessing federal funding. Loans range from $80,000 to $100,000 on average. The costs for training at ATP, the nation’s largest flight school, range from $86,995 to $116,995, depending on flight experience, according to the company’s website.
With flight training becoming more expensive, Martini and Geraci believe they have found an untapped market.
“They’re in the business to teach people how to fly. We’re in the business to lend money,” Martini told the Business Journal back in 2023.
The company counts 106 employees as of May.
