'With the support of our outstanding financial partners we can continue to expand our mission of supplying funding to any small business with the desire for capital and ability to thrive,' said Solomon Lax, Chief Executive Officer, Pearl Capital Business Funding. 'We understand that despite personal credit issues, many small business owners have triumphed in building successful businesses. Locked out of the traditional bank financing channels, those small business owners turn to Pearl Capital Business Funding to enable their dreams. By partnering with Arena, we are able to make those dreams a reality.'

Axxcess Capital Partners acted as sole placement agent for theŽ transaction. CEO of Axxcess, Eli Spiro stated, 'We were pleased to assist the talented Pearl team with this transaction and have a high degree of confidence in their ability to continue offering stellar financing products to their broad customer base. Arena will enhance their financing capabilities even further.'

Pearl Capital (www.pearlcapital.com) provides innovative alternative financial solutions to the underbanked and unbanked business sector. Through its national origination platform, Pearl's financings are available throughout the country to small and midsized business that are unable to access sufficient traditional financing from banks and non-banks lenders. This financing comes after Pearl was acquired in 2015 by Capital Z Partners, a leading private equity investor focused exclusively in the financial services industry.

Arena Investors, LP (www.arenaco.com) is a global investment firm and merchant capital provider that seeks to generate attractive, risk-adjusted, stable, and uncorrelated returns by opportunistically investing across the entire credit spectrum in areas where conventional sources of capital are scarce. For additional information, please contact Marcel Herbst at (212) 612-3208 or mherbst@arenaco.com.

Axxcess Capital is an investment banking and financial advisory firm focused on clients in the specialty finance and other alternative investment sectors. www.axxcesscapital.com