First Bank of the Lake
At a Glance
Worth a term-sheet call on franchise and practice deals where its volume is concentrated; for an independent main-street acquisition, use it as the competing quote rather than the anchor.
- Pricing
- Custom Pricing, Loan products; no fee to engage. Rates are quoted per deal and not published. The bank cites over $2 billion in SBA loans since 2020 and ranks third most active SBA franchise lender by volume since 2023, a rank it attributes to the SBA (fblake.bank, August 2026); treat volume claims as the bank's own.
- Best For
- Acquisition borrowers who want a high-volume national SBA shop with an explicit ETA appetite, especially franchise deals and practice acquisitions such as dental and veterinary
- Track Record
- A Missouri Preferred Lender running a national SBA division since 2019.
- Type
- Bank (lends directly)
- Footprint
- Nationwide.
- Approval Authority
- Says it holds SBA Preferred Lender status, so it can approve the loan itself rather than sending the file to the agency for a second look.
- Its 7(a), small-business and working-capital product pages each open on the sentence that it is a nationwide SBA Preferred Lender; until September 2026 only a working-capital article carried it. The bank has moved domains, and its older address publishes nothing at all.
- Deal Size
- $500k to $5M.
- Publishes no floor. Most of this shelf gives a ceiling that is really the agency's own cap, and no minimum at all.
- Searcher Practice
- A dedicated searcher and acquisition practice, handled remotely.
- A dedicated page headed Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition, alongside franchise and professional-practice lending pages and its own volume figures since 2020.
- Practice Lending
- A practice lending program that names buying a practice.
- Its SBA industry pages lend to dental, veterinary, optometry and chiropractic practices; the dental page names purchasing an established practice and the chiropractor page buying out a partner, and the figures they print are the SBA program's own.
- Published Terms
- 7(a) loans to $5M, with a heavy franchise-acquisition practice.
- Roadmap Stages
- 3. Set Up & Fund the Search5. Diligence & Close the Deal
Where Its Loans Went
29 change-of-ownership loans across 4 of the industries the loan file ranks, the largest being Electrical Contractors and Other Wiring Installation Contractors at 10.
- Electrical Contractors and Other Wiring Installation Contractors10 loans
- Window Treatment Retailers7 loans
- Administrative Management and General Management Consulting Services6 loans
- Roofing Contractors6 loans
Counts cover FY2020 through FY2025, from the SBA's loan-level file.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Publishes a dedicated entrepreneurship-through-acquisition use case rather than treating searchers as an exception
- SBA Preferred Lender status with in-house credit decisions and a national footprint
- Deep franchise practice (hundreds of concepts) plus a reputation in healthcare and practice acquisitions
- High small-dollar throughput keeps it responsive on deals big acquisition desks deprioritize
Cons
- Franchise lending dominates the platform, so a self-funded search on an independent business is not the core lane
- No published rates, timelines, or searcher-specific terms to hold it to
- The national SBA division dates to 2019, a shorter track record than the long-standing acquisition banks
- Volume and ranking claims come from the bank's own marketing
What Searchers Say
FOIA-based FY2025 roundups place it among the most active 7(a) lenders in the country, and trade coverage notes its franchise and practice-lending niches. Searcher-community discussion is thinner than for Live Oak or Byline; sentiment is roundup-level rather than firsthand.
How to Approach
First Bank of the Lake is a bank, so this is how that kind of lender comes in, what it weighs, and how to arrive ready.
The Typical Arc
- A prequalification on you and the target, often from the first email.
- A full application and the bank's own underwrite of the deal.
- A term sheet, then closing on the SBA's timeline, commonly two to four months.
What It Weighs
- Whether the business's cash flow covers the debt with room to spare.
- Your experience relative to the business you are buying.
- Your equity injection and how clean the financials are.
How to Prepare
- Model the payment and coverage before you call. SBA Acquisition Calculator
- Underwrite the specific deal end to end. Underwrite a Deal
- Show where every dollar comes from and goes. Sources & Uses Builder