Tennessee's small business base added 40,433 net private-sector jobs between March 2023 and March 2024, with small businesses accounting for 80.7% of that growth, according to the SBA Office of Advocacy. Memphis sits at the center of one of the country's most active commercial economies, anchored by Memphis International Airport's 3.8 million metric tons of annual cargo volume, the highest of any North American airport in 2024. That freight infrastructure draws manufacturers, distributors, and professional services firms whose capital needs rarely fit inside a standard bank timeline. An SBA 7(a) or 504 loan delivers the long repayment terms and lower rates that match the pace of real asset investment, whether you are financing a warehouse build-out near the airport corridor or acquiring equipment for a production facility.
Along Beale Street and throughout the South Main Arts District, music and entertainment businesses face a different funding problem: revenue is seasonal, lease obligations are not. Venue owners, recording studios, and hospitality operators tied to Memphis's tourism economy, which generated a record $4.3 billion in visitor spending in 2024, often need capital structured over five to ten years rather than a short bridge. SBA loans and long-term business loans give those operators breathing room that a shorter product cannot. Professional services firms anchored in the East Memphis Poplar Avenue Corridor face a different constraint: project pipelines that produce invoices before they produce cash. For those businesses, pairing an SBA loan with invoice factoring can stabilize payroll during the gap. Meanwhile, contractors building out space in the Memphis Medical District, the 250-acre downtown campus anchored by St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, UTHSC, and Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare, can use construction business loans structured around draw schedules rather than lump-sum disbursements. Medical device, paper, and consumer products manufacturers across the city's industrial corridors, where Smith & Nephew and International Paper operate, typically need equipment financing with terms long enough to match asset depreciation cycles.
Rise Business Funding works with Memphis businesses across all of these structures. Use the business funding calculator to model loan amounts and estimated payments before you apply.