Bridge and LuminArx Launch $500 Million Fund to Finance CPG Brands Locked Out of Bank Loans

Quick Facts

Bridge and LuminArx Capital Management announced a $500 million financing partnership on Aug. 5, 2026, targeting CPG brands and retail suppliers.
The program initially serves Walmart and Sam’s Club suppliers, offering credit lines of $500,000 to $2.5 million per borrower.
Bridge’s AI underwriting approves facilities in days, compared to the months required by traditional banks.

Bridge, the commercial lending platform spun out of Citi in 2023, has partnered with LuminArx Capital Management to deploy $500 million in purchase-order financing for CPG brands supplying America’s largest retailers. The announcement came Aug. 5, 2026, and targets a specific problem: brands that win major retail placements but cannot fund the inventory required to fill them.

The cash gap is structural. Walmart pays on Net 60 to 90 day terms. Target stretches to Net 60 to 120. That means a brand shipping $250,000 worth of product to a big-box retailer can wait up to four months to see that money. Co-packers, meanwhile, require 30 to 50% upfront to begin production. Traditional banks move too slowly and require financial history most young CPG brands do not have.

Bridge built its model around that gap. The platform underwrites the supplier, the purchase order, and the retailer relationship, then structures repayment to align with when the retailer actually pays. Because lenders evaluate the retailer’s creditworthiness, not just the brand’s balance sheet, brands that cannot qualify for conventional loans can still access capital.

Pet brand Dog Sauce is one example of a company that used Bridge’s financing to fulfill a large retail order after banks declined. The brand’s situation mirrors what the Retail Brew story describes as a common pattern: a dream order from a major retailer that nearly becomes a nightmare due to the financing gap between production costs and retailer payment timelines.

Bridge co-founders Rohit Mathur and Harte Thompson built the platform while at Citi, launching a proof of concept through the bank’s D10X incubator in August 2021. They spun the company out as an independent entity in September 2023 by merging it with Foro. Mathur serves as CEO. Thompson is COO. Backers include TTV Capital, Citi Ventures, Uncorrelated Ventures, Gilgamesh Ventures, Thayer Partners, and US Bank Ventures.

Since its founding, Bridge has deployed more than $800 million and financed hundreds of businesses. The company has built retail partnerships with Walmart, Dollar General, Best Buy, and Sam’s Club, among others.

The LuminArx deal is not an equity investment in Bridge. LuminArx provides the capital. Bridge originates and services the loans using its proprietary AI underwriting engine. The system reviews every order, invoice, and retailer payment in a brand’s history to price risk without the padding that slows traditional bank processes.

Rohit Mathur, CEO of Bridge, said: “The demand from suppliers selling into the country’s largest retailers has consistently outpaced the capital available to fund it. LuminArx shares our conviction in this market and brings the scale and sophistication to meet that demand.”

PO financing carries a cost. Fees run 1.5 to 3% per 30-day period, making it among the more expensive forms of business credit. For brands on thin margins, that cost matters. But for a brand staring at a $500,000 Walmart order with no inventory and no bank willing to move fast enough, it is often the only path to fulfillment.

The Secured Finance Network reported in 2025 that even sponsor-backed CPG brands are increasingly turning to alternative debt because traditional bank loan cycles do not match retail order timelines. Bridge is positioning itself as the infrastructure layer for that shift, with the LuminArx capital giving it significantly more capacity to meet demand from Walmart and Sam’s Club suppliers first, with other retail ecosystems likely to follow.