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How it grew: With a website that makes it easy for small companies to apply quickly for commercial loans online, seven-year-old Biz2Credit has positioned itself for profit. Biz2Credit's ever-expanding group of lenders, including a number of small banks, is eager to make deals with small firms at a time when bank loans under $1 million have stagnated, according to a Federal Reserve Bank of New York survey. Last year, Biz2Credit facilitated $380 million in loans, up from $200 million in 2012.

During the "credit crunch" of 2009 - 2011 when the largest financial institutions closed the spigot on small business lending, approval rates sunk to single digit percentages at many big banks. During this dry period, credit unions and alternative lenders filled some of the void and small banks, in particular, were the most willing to lend.

If you are applying for a loan to finance your small business, you are probably aware that lending institutions will scrutinize your credit score. But perhaps you've made a couple mistakes in your financial history that caused your credit score to lower, and you ended up with sky-high interest rates whenever you applied for loans. Or worse, you were denied loans altogether.

Big banks and institutional investors were more generous in granting small-business loans in August, while their smaller competitors turned slightly stingier, according to a Biz2Credit study.