Nomad Lane pays its factories months before a bag reaches a traveler. Flex gives that inventory 60 more days to turn into cash.

Factories get paid up front. Customers pay at checkout, 45 to 90 days later. Nomad Lane lives in the gap between the two.

Nomad Lane designs travel bags and accessories for people who move between the boarding gate and the boardroom: the Bento Bag, a personal-item bag that fits under an airline seat, the Bento Backpack, the Origami Tote and the Tomodachi Sling. Co-founders Kishore Vasnani and Vanessa Jeswani started the company in 2017 after visiting 42 countries and deciding no bag matched their attention to detail. The Bento Bag that launched on Indiegogo (a global crowdfunding platform), raised more than $2 million and landed in the top 0.06% of all crowdfunding campaigns on the platform.

Today this bootstrapped Miami-based brand sells direct to more than 20,000 customers, carries over 5,000 reviews and has been featured in Forbes, Fast Company and Travel + Leisure.

This is where the finances can get complicated. Nomad Lane places inventory orders with suppliers 45 to 90 days before the product is sellable, and suppliers expect to be paid on their terms. Every purchase order ties up cash that does not come back until customers check out weeks or months later. The stronger the demand, the bigger the orders, and the more cash sits in transit.

In 2026, the demand got strong enough to plan for an eight-figure business. Growth wasn't creating a profitability problem. It was creating a timing problem.

The Pain Points

Three things sent the founders looking for a new financial partner.

• Limited Cash Flow. Inventory has to be paid for before it can be sold. With supplier lead times averaging 45 to 90 days, each order locked up working capital for a full season, and the timing of the next order was set by the bank balance rather than by demand.
• Low Credit Limits. Traditional lenders underwrite a bootstrapped ecommerce brand on its history, not on its trajectory. The credit offer did not scale with an inventory plan built for eight figures.
• Fragmented Tools. Supplier payments, cards and cash sat across traditional banking tools that were built for someone else's business, so the working picture lived in spreadsheets rather than in the products the team used every day.

None of these were signs of a struggling business. They were the cost of a business that was starting to work.

“As a bootstrapped business we started seeing strong signals that encouraged us to grow into an 8 figure/year business. With that we started having cash constraints around Supplier payments and terms to pay for inventory.”
‍— Kishore Vasnani and Vanessa Jeswani, Co-Founders

The Turning Point

The founders evaluated Flex the way they evaluate a supplier: on whether it fit how the business actually runs.

Three things set it apart. The platform itself, which the team found easy to use from the first login. Underwriting that looked at the business the way a founder would — revenue, cash flow and trajectory rather than a credit score. And a track record with businesses like theirs, which mattered as much as the terms did.

The platform felt founder-friendly from the start. The underwriting and credit line worked for our business, and knowing Flex already works with other retail and e-commerce brands gave us confidence that they understood what we needed.
‍— Kishore Vasnani and Vanessa Jeswani, Co-Founders

The product fits how the business already runs. Supplier invoices go on Flex’s Net-60* Card, which gives Nomad Lane up to 60 days before eligible spend is due — long enough to cover most of the window between placing an order and having product to sell. “The 60 day float works great for us, especially given that we have longer lead times which average 45-90 days,” the founders said.

The Impact

The clearest measure of change is the cash conversion cycle. Nomad Lane now sells product before it pays for it, not after. Three things improved as a result.