Capital for the supply chain
behind the airframe.

Aerospace supply is one of the most capital-punishing structures in American manufacturing, and the reason is arithmetic rather than mismanagement. You are awarded a program. Before a single part ships you buy titanium, Inconel, aluminum plate, or long-lead castings — frequently on cash or net-30 terms, frequently from a mill with a quoted lead time measured in months. You build or buy the tooling and fixturing. You run first articles and pay for the inspection and documentation that qualifies them. You deliver. And then you wait, because your customer is a prime or a tier-one integrator paying on net 60 to net 120, on terms you did not negotiate and cannot change. The program is profitable. The working capital hole is enormous. Growth deepens it.

Banks are structurally bad at this. They see heavy concentration with a single prime and read it as risk rather than as the normal shape of a qualified supplier relationship. They discount work-in-process inventory that carries specialized certifications and no alternative buyer. They want two years of audited financials and a debt-service ratio computed on a trailing period that may predate the award entirely. And they take 45 to 90 days, which is well past the point where the tooling had to be cut. Legion underwrites the release schedule and the deposit record and closes in a day or two.

What we fund inside an aerospace supplier

Raw material for a specific release — titanium, Inconel and other nickel alloys, aluminum plate, stainless, composites, and the long-lead castings and forgings that must be committed months ahead. Tooling, fixturing, and workholding, including the program-specific tooling a prime requires but does not always fund. First-article inspection cost and the documentation burden around it. Machine tool acquisition plus the real cost around it: rigging, foundation, power, probing, tool presetting, and operator training. Inspection and metrology equipment — CMMs, scanners, and the gauge calibration program that an audit requires. Certification and accreditation costs including AS9100, NADCAP for special processes, and ITAR compliance infrastructure. Skilled labor retention through a build-rate trough, which is often the single most important investment a supplier makes, because machinists lost in a downturn do not come back when the rate recovers. Facility expansion and clean-room or controlled-environment build-outs.

What we don't ask for

We don't run hard credit pulls to check pricing. We don't ask for two years of audited or reviewed financials. We don't require collateral on positions under $250K. We don't require a notice of assignment to your prime on most positions, which matters because suppliers reasonably prefer not to signal a funding relationship to a program office. We underwrite bank statements, time in business, program stability, and customer mix.

A generic underwriting engine misreads a healthy aerospace supplier at nearly every turn. The single $150K wire to a titanium distributor reads as a cash emergency rather than as the input to a $500K release. The ten-week gap between material purchase and first invoice reads as revenue failure. Concentration with one prime reads as fragility rather than as evidence of a qualified, audited, hard-to-displace supplier position. Our underwriters know the difference. They look for material outflows that lead deposits by a consistent interval, end-of-month balances that hold through the build cycle, controlled NSF counts across heavy ACH activity, and a release rhythm that repeats.

We also calibrate to where you sit in the supply chain and what you actually make. A build-to-print machining supplier with recurring releases against an LTA has predictable revenue and gets working capital sized to that rhythm. A shop mobilizing for a new award has capital needs that entirely precede revenue and gets PO-anchored structure. A special-process house — heat treat, plating, NDT, painting — has shorter cycles, more customers, and faster turns, and gets flexible working capital. MRO and aftermarket suppliers run on different, often better, payment terms than new-build and can carry a shorter, cheaper position. Defense suppliers with government-adjacent payment flows get terms structured to those cycles.

Aerospace and defense segments we fund every week

Precision machining and build-to-print job shops running structural and engine components. Sheet-metal and formed-detail suppliers. Composite fabricators and layup shops. Special-process houses — heat treating, plating, anodizing, chem film, painting, shot peening, and non-destructive testing. Tooling, fixture, and jig builders. Wire harness and electrical interconnect assemblers. Machined casting and forging finishers. MRO and aftermarket parts suppliers. Avionics and electronics subassembly shops. Defense subcontractors on ground-vehicle, munitions, and shipboard programs. UAS and space-sector suppliers serving the newer launch and satellite manufacturers. Distributors and stocking suppliers of certified aerospace hardware.

Common aerospace funding scenarios

A prime increases a release quantity with a fixed delivery date and the titanium has a fourteen-week lead time and a quote that expires Friday. We fund the material commitment in 48 hours. A new program award requires AS9100 recertification, a CMM, and program-specific tooling before the first article — all cost, no revenue, for four months. We fund the qualification package against the award. A build rate is cut and the shop faces a choice between laying off machinists it spent five years training or carrying them through a two-quarter trough. We fund the workforce bridge; the alternative is permanently losing the capability. A prime shifts unilaterally from net 60 to net 90 and the mill still wants cash. We bridge the difference. A used five-axis machine appears at auction at a fraction of new with settlement due in a week. We wire the purchase and the rigging. A supplier stacked advances through a rate trough and the daily debits are now consuming the cash needed for the next release. We consolidate and cut the debit.

The pattern is consistent across all of it. In aerospace the capital goes out months before the revenue comes in, and the suppliers who hold their programs are the ones who can fund the gap without asking a prime to change its terms.