Capital Investment or Personal Loan?

[Alejandra Macias]

Good afternoon Bigger Pockets members! We are a start-up partnership Real Estate Company and I have a question in regards to taxes as it would be our first year filing. Our partners (married-couple) put forward personal money of $16k to buy our first two rehab properties. A month later, we received $24k from Angel Investors, at that point our partners paid themselves back $15k but left $1k in the company. Was their contribution considered a loan or capital invested? How would this be handled when filing taxes? Thank you for your time!