Bridge Launches $500M Direct Lending Fund for Retail Suppliers and CPG Brands

Bridge, an AI-powered lending platform backed by Citi, has launched a $500 million direct lending fund specifically for consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands and retail suppliers. The fund addresses the critical financing gap between production and payment, allowing suppliers to fulfill large purchase orders from major retailers without diluting equity or draining operating cash.

What was announced

The new $500 million direct lending fund is purpose-built for businesses navigating the financing gap inherent in large-scale retail. When a supplier secures a major order from a retailer like Walmart, they must often cover the costs of raw materials, manufacturing, packaging, and freight months before receiving payment. Bridge’s platform uses AI-powered underwriting to analyze the specific payment cycles and fulfillment requirements of each retailer, allowing it to fund up to 100% of a brand's production costs on confirmed or expected orders.

Since spinning out from Citi in 2023, Bridge has already facilitated more than $1 billion in financing for hundreds of businesses. Unlike traditional bank underwriting, which typically focuses on historical profits and existing invoices, Bridge’s model is forward-looking. It evaluates the strength of the upcoming order and the retailer relationship to provide capital in days rather than weeks. A recent application of this model involved DogSauce, a pet-food brand that used Bridge to fund an expansion from 1,200 to over 3,000 Walmart stores. This single order nearly doubled the brand's prior year revenue, demonstrating the fund's capacity to support rapid scaling for suppliers who might otherwise be forced into expensive or dilutive financing options.

"Retail is being reshaped by volatility in tariffs, freight, oil prices and consumer demand, and the pressure often lands first on the growing suppliers that have the least room to absorb it. Bridge is using AI to put capital to work for the businesses that need it. By analyzing the business, the order, and the retailer relationship more deeply than legacy underwriting allows, Bridge can move faster and get from no to yes for strong suppliers that traditional lenders might miss."

Rohit Mathur, CEO and Co-Founder of Bridge.

The companies involved

Bridge operates as an AI-driven lending marketplace, accessible via bridgemarketplace.com, that specializes in bridging the liquidity gap for suppliers. The company emerged from Citi’s internal incubation efforts, officially spinning out as an independent entity in 2023 while maintaining the backing of the global financial giant. This lineage provides Bridge with a sophisticated understanding of institutional credit standards, which it combines with modern data science to serve the middle-market CPG sector.

Citi, the primary backer, is a global leader in investment banking and financial services. Its involvement in Bridge reflects a broader strategy of digitizing trade finance and supporting the supply chain ecosystem. Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, also plays a pivotal role in this ecosystem. By collaborating with Bridge, Walmart aims to provide its supplier community with more diverse capital options, ensuring that smaller and mid-sized brands can meet the inventory demands of a massive physical and digital retail footprint. This relationship is managed through Walmart’s Global Treasury department, where Brandy Newhof serves as Senior Director of Global Treasury.

What FF News has reported before

FF News has closely tracked the evolution of Bridge’s former parent and its digital transformation initiatives. We recently reported on how Citi Selects Caplight to Power Independent Pricing for New Digital Depositary Receipt Product, highlighting the bank's commitment to tokenization and digital assets. Furthermore, Citi’s institutional strength was evidenced when Citi Secures US$380 Billion Middle Office Mandate from Aegon Asset Management, a move that solidified its position in the middle-office services market. These developments underscore the institutional-grade foundation upon which Bridge was built before its spin-out. Additionally, our coverage of the broader financial landscape, such as the JD Power 2026 Study: 60% of U.S. Credit Card Customers Now Classified as Financially Unhealthy, provides context for the tightening credit conditions that make specialized lending funds like Bridge’s increasingly vital for business survival.

What this means

This announcement signals a shift in how trade finance is being unbundled from traditional commercial banking. By focusing on "order-to-cash" cycles rather than balance sheet history, Bridge is putting significant pressure on legacy factors who often charge exorbitant rates for similar liquidity. The use of AI to underwrite the retailer relationship - rather than just the borrower - suggests that the value in lending is moving toward proprietary data sets held by platforms that sit between retailers and suppliers. For the fintech sector, this $500 million commitment validates the "verticalized credit" model, proving that deep specialization in one niche, like CPG supply chains, can attract significant institutional capital even in a volatile macro environment.