How Badger Maps Grew with Founderpath: From Revenue Financing to a $4.2M Term Loan (with Lower All-In Cost)

Badger Maps is route planning and mapping software for field sales teams, founded by Steve Benson in 2012. In 2024 it took a $4.2 million delayed-draw term loan from Founderpath, drawing $2.8 million at the start to refinance a $1.8 million loan and add $1 million of growth capital, with two years of interest-only payments, no warrants and no exit fees, as Benson and Founderpath described it in 2024.

Key Takeaways

• Badger Maps’ Founderpath term loan was a $4.2 million delayed-draw facility with $2.8 million drawn at the start, per Founderpath’s December 2024 video with Steve Benson.
• Benson said in a July 2024 Founderpath webinar that $1.8 million of the $2.8 million refinanced a loan he already had and $1 million was new growth capital.
• Benson and Founderpath’s December 2024 video description both give a two-year interest-only period, no warrants and no exit fees; the description also lists a 17% interest rate.
• Benson said in the same video, published December 2024, that Founderpath was not the cheapest on headline rate but was the cheapest once he ran every fee and cost through an IRR comparison.
• Benson’s September 2022 talk lists two earlier lenders: Lighter Capital, a 2016 revenue-based loan of $888K at about 18%, and Scaleworks, a 2019 four-year loan of $1.5M at 17% APR.

What Badger Maps does

Badger Maps says on its company page, as of October 2026, that Benson started his career in field sales at IBM, then sold the Google Maps API at Google, and left in 2012 to build Badger Maps as a mobile-first field sales platform. Its site lists route planning, sales mapping, lead generation and visit check-ins that sync to the sales team’s CRM.

Its revenue does not arrive evenly. In a September 2022 Founder500 talk published by Founderpath, Benson’s slides describe growth that is “not so smooth” because of annual and multi-year deals, COVID and seasonality, and say that debt smooths out the bumps so you make payroll in December. He says in the talk that Badger Maps has used debt since about 2015.

From revenue-based financing to a term loan: Badger Maps’ debt history

Badger Maps started with revenue-based financing and moved to longer, cheaper term loans as it grew. The table lists each lender as Benson and Founderpath describe the deals; the rates are shown the way each source labels them.

Year	Lender	Amount	Structure	Rate as stated
2016	Lighter Capital	$888K over 2 years in 4 tranches	Revenue-based financing	About 18%
2019	Scaleworks / Element Finance	$1.5M over 3 tranches	Straight-line, 4-year loan	17% APR
2021	Founderpath	$2.25M over 6 tranches	Straight-line, 4-year loan	16.3% APR
2024	Founderpath	$4.2M facility, $2.8M drawn at the start	Term loan, 2 years interest-only	17% interest rate

Each move had a reason. Benson’s slides say he left Lighter for Scaleworks because it was cheaper and would lend more. In the talk (watch at 22:28) he says he switched to Founderpath because it was cheaper again, and that a gap of 17% to 16.3% adds up on a balance of about $2.5 million. The 2024 loan then changed the shape of the debt: a larger limit, drawn in stages, with two years before principal repayments.

Why Benson matches each draw to what it pays for

Benson’s rule is to borrow close to when the money is spent. In the 2022 talk (watch at 15:29) he says that the more closely you match your spend with the money coming in, the lower your cost of capital, because you hold borrowed cash in the bank for less time. He also explains (watch at 15:58) that debt has paid for five extra engineers at Badger Maps since 2015.

Benson says almost all of Badger Maps’ investments take at least a year and a half to two years to pay back, so the loan term has to be longer than the payback. That is his case against the one-year or 18-month loans he says many lenders offer software companies:

You need a time horizon longer than your actual payback or else you’re basically just putting the money back in that you borrowed.

Steve Benson, founder and CEO, Badger Maps, Founder500 talk, September 2022 (watch at 17:26)

Watch Benson’s full talk with transcript and slides on Founderpath.

The 2024 term loan: terms and what the money paid for

These are the terms of Badger Maps’ loan as Benson describes them on camera and as Founderpath lists them under the same video. They describe one historical deal, not an offer to other companies.

Term	Badger Maps’ deal	Source
Facility size	$4.2M delayed draw, drawable over two years	Benson in the video; Founderpath’s description
Drawn at the start	$2.8M	Benson in the video and the July 2024 webinar; Founderpath’s description
Use of the first draw	$1.8M refinanced an existing loan, $1M for growth	Benson in the July 2024 webinar
Interest-only period	2 years	Benson in the video; Founderpath’s description
Interest rate	17%	Founderpath’s description only
Warrants	None	Benson in the video; Founderpath’s description
Fees at the end	None	Benson in the video; Founderpath’s description (“No exit fees”)
Time to close	20 days	Founderpath’s description only
Further draws	After showing growth; paperwork already in place	Benson in the video

Benson explained the deal in his own words when Founderpath’s Nathan Latka asked him on a live webinar how much he took and why:

I did, 2,800,000, and, for me, it was recapping a $1,800,000 loan that I already had outstanding. Your fund was a better deal than what I had and then expanding by a million bucks.

Steve Benson, founder and CEO, Badger Maps, Founderpath webinar, July 2024 (watch at 43:26)

In the same answer (watch at 43:43) he said much of the new $1 million had already gone into Google Ads, and that the spend paid off faster than he expected as he kept increasing it. In the video, he says the two-year interest-only period lets the company invest the capital and get a return before paying it back, and that the next tranche, another $1.2 million, was already set up once growth continued. That would bring the total drawn to $4.0 million of the $4.2 million limit.

Was it the lower all-in cost?

Benson says yes, by his own comparison. He told Founderpath he spoke to more than 50 lenders before choosing. Asked whether Founderpath’s headline rate was higher but its all-in rate the cheapest, he answered “That is accurate” and explained how he measured it:

You were not the cheapest headline, but … when you do an IRR, you look at every single fee, every single cost, every little thing.

Steve Benson, founder and CEO, Badger Maps, Founderpath video, December 2024 (watch at 2:24)

The competing offers he compared are not published, so the result can’t be recalculated here; treat it as Benson’s assessment of his own deal. The method is the useful part. A headline rate leaves out warrants, closing fees, end fees and prepayment terms, and an interest-only period delays principal rather than removing it. To compare offers fairly, use the same amount of cash and the same time horizon for each, put every draw, interest payment, principal payment and fee on its date, and compare the resulting IRR. Value any warrants separately, since they cost equity, not cash. Ask each lender for the full payment schedule so you can lay out the cash flows side by side.

What founders can learn from Badger Maps

1. Borrow in stages. A delayed-draw facility lets you take cash when you have a use for it, so you pay interest on less idle money.
2. Match the term to the payback. If an engineer or an ad budget takes 18 months to pay back, a 12-month loan forces repayment before the return arrives.
3. Refinance when terms improve. Badger Maps changed lenders when it found a cheaper or larger loan, and used the 2024 deal to refinance a $1.8 million loan it already had.
4. Compare all-in cost, not headline rate. Put every fee, warrant and repayment date into one IRR comparison before choosing.
5. Know what each draw depends on. Badger Maps’ later draws depend on showing growth, so check the conditions before counting on the full limit.

For another Founderpath customer story, the ContactMonkey case study shows a founder using revenue financing before raising a Series A.

Funding growth without giving up equity

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Sources and method

We checked every fact on this page on October 30, 2026. Company facts come from Badger Maps’ own page. The financing facts come from Steve Benson’s own words in three Founderpath recordings and from Founderpath’s description of the deal, so they are first-party accounts by the borrower and the lender rather than independent verification; each is attributed and dated where it appears. Where the sources differ, this page says so: the YouTube title calls the deal a $4m term loan while the description and Benson give $4.2 million, and the $1.2 million next tranche leaves $0.2 million of the limit unexplained. Lender terms and Founderpath’s current products have changed since these deals; see the term loan page for today’s terms.

• Badger Maps, Who We Are, read October 30, 2026
• Steve Benson, How I hit $5m ARR, kept control using 3 different debt providers, Founder500, September 2022 (talk, transcript and slides 4-7)
• Nathan Latka, 9 SaaS Case Studies on Affiliates, LinkedIn Ads and Content Strategy, Founderpath webinar, July 7, 2024 (Benson at 43:26-44:04)
• Founderpath Finances Badger Maps with $4m Term Loan, video and description, December 10, 2024

Badger Maps financing FAQ

What is Badger Maps?

Badger Maps is a mobile-first field sales platform with route planning, sales mapping, lead generation and CRM-connected visit check-ins. Steve Benson, a former Google Maps API salesperson, founded it in 2012 and is its CEO.

How much did Badger Maps borrow from Founderpath?

In 2024 Badger Maps took a $4.2 million delayed-draw term loan from Founderpath and drew $2.8 million at the start, according to Steve Benson and Founderpath’s December 2024 video. Earlier, Benson’s 2022 slides list $2.25 million borrowed from Founderpath over six tranches from 2021.

What were the terms of Badger Maps’ Founderpath loan?

Benson and Founderpath’s December 2024 video description give a two-year interest-only period, no warrants and no exit fees. The description also lists a 17% interest rate and 20 days to close. These were the terms of one historical deal, not a current offer.

Why did Badger Maps refinance with Founderpath?

Benson said in a July 2024 Founderpath webinar that the $2.8 million refinanced a $1.8 million loan he already had because Founderpath was a better deal, and added $1 million of growth capital, much of which went into Google Ads.

Was Founderpath the cheapest option for Badger Maps?

Benson said Founderpath was not the cheapest on headline rate but was the cheapest all-in once he compared every fee and cost in an IRR calculation, after speaking to more than 50 lenders. The competing offers are not public, so this is his assessment of his own deal.

Did Badger Maps give up equity for the loan?

No equity was part of the 2024 term loan: Benson and Founderpath’s video description both say it had no warrants. The loan is repaid with interest instead.

What is a delayed-draw term loan?

A delayed-draw term loan sets a total limit but lets the borrower take the money in stages, usually after meeting agreed conditions. Badger Maps drew $2.8 million of a $4.2 million limit at the start, with further draws available over two years once it showed growth.