Pittsburgh-based Honeycomb Credit offers loans to small businesses during coronavirus

Paul Guggenheimer | Wednesday, April 1, 2020 1:44 p.m.

Visitors are unable to gain access to the New York Department of Labor due to closures over the coronavirus pandemic, Wednesday, March 18.

Small businesses are among the hardest hit economically during the coronavirus pandemic. But there are now more options for help.

Pittsburgh-based Honeycomb Credit, a startup investment crowdfunding platform, announced Wednesday the launch of its first Relief Loan Campaign. It provides working capital loans to small businesses during the pandemic.

Each loan is crowdsourced by a business’s customers and community, and provides $10,000 to $50,000 in working capital, the company said.

The loan has a 45-day payment-free period, and an interest rate of 3.75% for an initial six-month interest-only payment period, which rises to 5% to 7.5% over the three-year term.

A business could go from application to cash in hand in as little as 14 days, according to Honeycomb.

In addition to this program, Honeycomb has launched the campaign for Global Wordsmiths, a social enterprise it says provides language translation, localization and interpretation services.