Section 03 · Cyphr
Capital readiness, scored.
The research section says what the market looks like. This section says what Cyphr does inside it: turn bank transactions into a lender-grade 0–300 readiness score, prepare businesses to clear a credit box, measure the lift that preparation creates, and roll it up into the index the bond reports against.
Why legacy credit can't see these businesses.
The premise
It isn't a credit problem. It's a legibility problem.
Most of the small business economy is denied capital not because it is unbankable, but because it is unreadable to the infrastructure lenders currently use. The SBA is retiring FICO SBSS in March 2026 and nothing is replacing it. Cyphr was built for the businesses that score could never see — on the same 0–300 scale, so every underwriter already knows how to read the output.
80%
Unreadable to legacy credit
Small businesses the current scoring stack cannot assess. Federal Reserve SBCS, 2024.
0–300
Cyphr score scale
The scale FICO SBSS used, rebuilt on cash-flow and public-record signals.
9
Readiness dimensions
Every score decomposes into nine weighted, auditable dimensions.
Structure
Where Cyphr sits in the EMBI
Five parties, one direction of travel. Cyphr is the layer between the instrument and the lenders — it does not lend and does not hold risk. It makes borrowers legible and makes outcomes measurable.
- 01
Capital
Investors and the guarantee layer
Subscribes the bond and sets the impact reporting the instrument must answer to.
- 02
The instrument
Economic Mobility Bond
Allocates proceeds to mission lenders against target geographies and reports outcomes back to capital.
- 03
Cyphr
Readiness and measurement layer
Prepares borrowers, scores readiness 0–300, matches them to lender credit boxes, and supplies the lift and index measures the instrument reports.
- 04
Mission lenders
CDFIs, community banks, SBA intermediaries
Underwrite and originate from scored, packet-ready deal flow inside their own credit policy.
- 05
Businesses
Small businesses in target ZIPs
Receive capital, and a readiness profile that keeps compounding after the loan closes.
The four jobs
Prepare, measure, index, originate.
Prepare the business
A bank connection plus public records replaces the paperwork pile. Cyphr reads the transactions in industry context, produces an explainable readiness score and a gap-closing plan, then runs the technical assistance that closes those gaps — document sprints, compliance clinics, banking labs and a procurement bid academy, delivered directly or with named partners and re-scored on completion.
- · No consumer bureau gate
- · TA assigned from the score, not a menu
- · Every completion is re-scored
Measure the lift
Every business carries a timestamped score history. The delta between the score at intake and the score at each later read is the lift — attributable to the specific gaps closed. That gives the instrument an outcome measure that exists before, and independent of, any loan decision.
- · Score at intake vs. score today
- · Attributed to dimensions closed
- · Cohort-level, not anecdote-level
Build the index
Roll individual scores up by ZIP, county or lender and you get a business posture index — a repeatable read on how fundable a place is, which dimension is holding it back, and whether program dollars moved the number. This is the layer the bond reports against.
- · ZIP, county and lender rollups
- · Dimension-level diagnosis
- · Repeatable period over period
Feed the instrument
Prepared businesses are matched on two demand channels: mission lenders inside the structure, who receive packet-ready deals against a stated credit box, and open procurement — municipal, state, federal and anchor-institution solicitations matched on NAICS, certification and readiness. Revenue from contracts is what makes the credit performable.
- · Matched to a stated credit box
- · Procurement matched on NAICS and certification
- · Documented basis per origination
Demo
The product, in seven steps.
This is the borrower path as it runs in the product — connect, confirm the inputs, get a score, then see the three things the score unlocks: capital matches, procurement opportunities, and the technical assistance programs Cyphr runs to close the gaps. It ends in the measurement layer all of it feeds: the readiness dashboard and ZIP-level index that are the actual deliverable to the instrument. Everything below is computed in your browser from seeded data; nothing is submitted anywhere.
Point of view
What the business sees: a score, the gaps behind it, and what closing them unlocks.
Step 01 · Connect
Pick a business
In the product this is a bank connection. Here, four seeded businesses stand in for the spread Cyphr sees in the field — from pre-revenue to bank-ready.
Step 02 · Confirm inputs
Readiness inputs
Move anything. The score recomputes live — that is the whole point: an owner can see what closing a gap is worth before doing the work.
Step 03 · Cyphr score
Bankable now. Matched to traditional and SBA products.
Same 0–300 scale as FICO SBSS, which the SBA retires in March 2026.
Nine dimensions
Where the score comes from
Owner credit is one input of nine, weighted 10%. No consumer bureau gate, no black box — every point is attributable.
Step 04 · Capital matches
6 of 6 products eligible
SBA 7(a)
Liberty Bank
Amount
$150K – $5M
Rate
10.5–12%
Term
10–25 yr
Business line of credit
Heartland Capital
Amount
$25K – $250K
Rate
12–18%
Term
Revolving
Equipment financing
Midwest Business Fund
Amount
$10K – $500K
Rate
9–15%
Term
3–7 yr
CDFI term loan
Community Reinvestment Fund
Amount
$25K – $250K
Rate
7–10%
Term
3–10 yr
SBA microloan
Justine Petersen
Amount
$5K – $50K
Rate
8–13%
Term
Up to 6 yr
Short-term working capital
Heartland Capital
Amount
$5K – $75K
Rate
14–24%
Term
6–18 mo
Illustrative product shelf and seeded businesses. Rates, partners and thresholds stand in for the live lender configuration.
Step 05 · Procurement
2 contracts this business can bid today
How to read this: capital is one demand channel — contracts are the other. The same readiness profile is matched against open municipal, state, federal and anchor-institution solicitations. A blocked row shows exactly which requirement stands between the business and a bid, in the buyer's own terms.
Early childhood seat capacity contract
City of Kansas City · Health Dept. · Kansas City, MO
Value
$180K / yr
Closes
Rolling
Fit
100%
Diverse supplier program · facilities services
Truman Medical Centers · Kansas City, MO
Value
$40K – $250K
Closes
Nov 01
Fit
100%
Facility support services, small business set-aside
GSA Region 6 · Kansas City metro
- · 5 of 5 verified documents required
Illustrative solicitation set for the target geographies. In production this list is refreshed from buyer portals and matched on NAICS, certification status and the readiness profile.
Step 06 · Technical assistance
1 program assigned from the score
How to read this: Cyphr does not hand the owner a report and leave. Every dimension scoring under 70% pulls in the TA program built to move it, weakest first. Cyphr runs these programs — directly or with a named partner — and every completion is re-scored, so the assistance and the outcome measure sit in the same system.
Procurement bid academy
Triggered by geography & market at 65% · Cyphr + partner with Mid-America Regional Council
Registration in SAM.gov and local vendor portals, MBE/WBE certification support, pricing and past-performance narrative, then coached submission of a first real bid.
Format
Cohort curriculum + first-bid coaching
Length
8 weeks
Unlocks
Set-aside and preference-eligible contracts.
Projection is the sum of typical lift observed on program completion. The delta is what the instrument reports as programmatic outcome, not a promise to the borrower.
Step 07 · Measurement
The dashboard and index this produces
One scored business is a packet. A thousand of them is a data product. This is the deliverable the instrument reports against — a live readiness dashboard and a ZIP-level index, both built from the same score you just moved.
1,191
Businesses scored
Cohort through preparation to date.
+36 pts
Median readiness lift
138 at intake → 174 today.
$24.0M
Capital originated
From scored, packet-ready deal flow.
61%
Approval rate
Against a 28% unprepared baseline.
Dashboard · TA delivery
Programs run and what they moved
How to read this: each row is a technical assistance program Cyphr delivers. Completion is re-scored, so the median lift column is measured, not projected.
| Program | Enrolled | Completed | Median lift |
|---|---|---|---|
| Document readiness sprint | 946 | 812 | +14 pts |
| Licensing & compliance clinic | 604 | 511 | +9 pts |
| Banking & cash discipline lab | 488 | 372 | +11 pts |
| Procurement bid academy | 361 | 268 | +8 pts |
| Payroll & operations formalization | 233 | 191 | +6 pts |
| Revenue formation intensive | 178 | 121 | +18 pts |
Dashboard · procurement
Contract channel
How to read this:contracts are the revenue side of the same cohort. Registrations and certifications are inputs; won contracts and their value are the outcome the instrument can report alongside originations.
1,143
Registered in buyer portals
296
MBE / WBE certified
587
Bids submitted
164
Contracts won
$18.4M in awarded contract value across the cohort to date.
Dashboard · lift over time
Median cohort score by quarter
How to read this: the solid line is the median readiness score of every prepared business. The dashed line marks the business you just scored — currently 250 pts, capital ready, roughly the 87th percentile of the cohort.
Dashboard · distribution shift
Share of cohort by tier
How to read this: the darker bar is where the cohort sat at intake, the teal bar is where it sits now. Preparation moves mass to the right.
Dashboard · attribution
Which dimensions produced the lift
How to read this: the 36-point median lift decomposed by dimension. Documentation and compliance do most of the work — both are fixable without new capital.
+14
Document readiness
+9
Licensing & compliance
+7
Banking health
+4
Team & operations
+2
Revenue trend
Index · ZIP rollup
Business readiness index
How to read this: each row is a target ZIP. The index is the median readiness score of businesses scored there, movement is the change since the prior read, and the binding constraint is the dimension holding that ZIP back. Sort to see which places are furthest along and which are moving fastest.
| ZIP | Place | Index | Movement | Prepared | Originated | Binding constraint |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 64110 | Kansas City, MO | 191 | +18 | 232 | $6.3M | Licensing & compliance |
| 64050 | Independence, MO | 183 | +7 | 129 | $2.9M | Document readiness |
| 66101 | Kansas City, KS | 176 | +24 | 187 | $3.9M | Banking health |
| 64127 | Kansas City, MO | 168 | +27 | 214 | $4.7M | Document readiness |
| 66603 | Topeka, KS | 162 | +13 | 118 | $1.9M | Banking health |
| 64130 | Kansas City, MO | 154 | +16 | 141 | $2.2M | Document readiness |
| 66104 | Kansas City, KS | 149 | +5 | 96 | $1.2M | Annual revenue |
| 66612 | Topeka, KS | 145 | +12 | 74 | $890K | Annual revenue |
Eight of the 286 target ZIPs shown. Figures are illustrative and stand in for the live index that Cyphr would publish period over period.
Measurement
From one score to an index.
The same primitive serves three readers. An owner sees a plan, a lender sees a packet, and the instrument sees a distribution it can report against — period over period, in the same units.
Owner view
Score, gap, plan
The four weakest dimensions become a ranked checklist with the point value of each fix attached. Preparation stops being advice and becomes arithmetic.
Lender view
Matched, packet-ready
Lenders state a credit box; scored businesses that clear it arrive with a standardized packet and 1071-ready fields already captured at intake.
Instrument view
Posture index
Scores aggregated by ZIP and lender give a readiness distribution for the target geography, the binding dimension in each, and the movement between reads.
The target geography is already mapped in the research section — DOC 05 · Target ZIP Codes covers the 286 ZIPs and the sector readiness picture the index would be built on.