BizSugar.com › Raising Capital › Small-business owners find funding in nooks, crannies

These days, small-business owners like Metzger have to be creative about getting the money to start and expand their companies. Many are turning to nontraditional sources, such as credit unions. Increasing numbers are going to online lending sites that cut out the traditional bank middleman and to factoring companies, which buy companies' future revenue.

Factoring is enjoying a cyclical upturn that it often sees during economic downturns, while credit unions and online social lenders hope the uptick in their small-business lending volume survives even after banks' lending returns to normal.

But some of these alternative financers are more expensive than a traditional bank loan, or brand-new and largely untested.