Our Story
Why we started LendHaven
After two decades on the bank side of the table, Bruce watched too many good businesses get a "no" that had nothing to do with whether they deserved financing — it was simply outside that one bank's box.
In June 2026, Bruce and Chelsea founded LendHaven Capital to fix that. Instead of representing a single lender's narrow credit appetite, LendHaven works on the borrower's side — shopping every deal across a national network of banks, credit unions, debt funds, and private lenders to find the structure that actually gets approved.
The name is intentional: a haven for business owners navigating financing that too often feels adversarial, opaque, or slow. We're still a two-person, principal-led firm by design — every deal that comes through the door gets both founders' direct attention, not a call center or a junior processor.
Bruce Duclos
Founder & Principal Broker
Bruce spent more than 20 years on the other side of the lending desk before founding LendHaven Capital. He built his career at some of the country's most established financial institutions — Citibank and CitiMortgage, Bank of America, Bank of the West, and most recently Huntington National Bank — originating, underwriting, and structuring commercial credit for businesses from local startups to companies with more than $50 million in annual revenue.
As a Relationship Manager and Senior Business Lending Specialist, Bruce advised business owners through acquisitions, expansions, ownership transitions, and everyday working capital needs. He structured credit across commercial real estate, SBA and conventional lending, equipment financing, and treasury management — and built the kind of banker-level underwriting instinct that only comes from reviewing thousands of deals from the inside.
He founded LendHaven Capital in June 2026 to put that experience to work directly for borrowers, and holds a Commercial Loan Broker certification from the Commercial Loan Broker Institute (CLBI). Bruce lives in Parker, Colorado with his wife and business partner, Chelsea.
Chelsea Duclos
Founder & Chief Operating Officer
Chelsea brings more than a decade of operations, program coordination, and client-experience leadership to her role as LendHaven's COO. Earlier in her career, she coordinated a 27-member regional education consortium — building the processes, documentation systems, and stakeholder communication that kept a large, multi-organization program running smoothly and compliantly.
Before that, she led front-of-house and guest-services operations for Marriott Vacation Club International, where she wrote the new-employee training manual still used across the organization and managed escalated customer situations under pressure — the same skill set that now keeps LendHaven's loan files moving cleanly from application to closing table.
As COO, Chelsea owns the operational backbone of LendHaven: client communication, documentation, and the hundred small details that determine whether a deal closes on time. She holds degrees from California State University, Fullerton and Cypress College, and lives in Parker, Colorado with her husband and business partner, Bruce.
What Guides Us
How we work with every client
Straight Answers
If a deal isn't fundable as structured, we'll tell you why — and what would need to change — instead of stringing you along.
Principal-Led, Every Time
You'll work directly with Bruce and Chelsea from application through funding — never a call center, never a hand-off.
Paid on Results
No upfront fees to shop your deal. We're compensated when your financing funds — not before.