Who gets looked at
The application asks for every owner and their percentage. Funders typically run credit on anyone at or above 20 to 25 percent — the same threshold the SBA uses for its guarantee rules — and on anyone who will sign the guarantee regardless of percentage. A 10 percent silent partner is usually not pulled. A 51 percent owner always is.
Revenue-based funders weight the scores lightly against the deposits, so one partner at 540 and another at 720 is a normal file. Banks and lines of credit weight them more, and a weak partner's score can move the answer there.
The guarantee is the real question
Nearly every small-business product carries a personal guarantee, and the funder decides whose. Most want the majority owner; many want everyone over the threshold; some accept one guarantor if that person owns enough. A partner who will not sign is the most common reason a partnership's application stalls, and it is a conversation to have between partners before the funder asks.
What the guarantee means: the signer is personally liable if the business does not repay. A partner with strong personal assets and a partner with none are taking different risks by signing the same line, and the operating agreement should say how that is shared.
Structures that come up
A spouse on the paperwork at 50 percent who does not work in the business: pulled and asked to sign, at most funders. An investor at 30 percent who is passive: pulled, and often asked to sign, which they may refuse; some funders will proceed with the operating partner alone. A partner mid-buyout: the funder wants the current ownership as filed, and an application during a buyout is usually better made after it closes. A recently added partner with a bankruptcy or a judgment: read as the business's, because it is now.