With New York in a State of Emergency, Its Legislators Rush to Regulate Disclosures in the Commercial Finance Industry
March 16, 2020
On March 7th, Governor Cuomo declared a disaster emergency for New York State. Four and 6 days later respectively, legislators in the state Assembly and Senate introduced commercial financing disclosure bills that would regulate all business-to-business financing transactions including secured loans, factoring, and merchant cash advances. The bills intend to create uniform disclosures for comparison purposes while also placing control of the commercial finance industry under the purview of the superintendent of the New York Department of Financial Services (DFS).
The bills also state that merchant cash advance companies may be required to prepare funding reports on all of their deals for the DFS to inspect so that the superintendent can analyze the difference between the estimated anticipated APR and the actual retrospective APR that resulted after the merchants delivered all of the receivables to the funder on each deal.
The bills are said to have been in the works for some time, but the timing of their introduction is awkward given the sudden economic situation that is unfolding in the state.
The bills are actually quite lengthy so you can read them yourselves in full here:
Assembly Bill A10118 – Introduced by Kenneth Zebrowski
Senate Bill S05470A – Introduced by Kevin Thomas
Kabbage Launches Kabbage Insights™, Allowing Small Businesses To Take Control of Their Cash Flow With Just a Few Clicks
March 4, 2020ATLANTA – March 4, 2020 – Kabbage, Inc. today launched Kabbage Insights, a fully automated tool that calculates and predicts cash-flow patterns to help small businesses identify cash surpluses and deficits. With the launch, Kabbage addresses one of the most vexing problems faced by small business owners. The new product comes just one month after the public launch of Kabbage Payments™, continuing the company’s rapid innovation to build a suite of integrated products that simplify cash-flow management for U.S. small businesses.
In less than 10 minutes, any small business can connect their real-time financial data to Kabbage Insights and access an analysis of their company’s historical, current and future cash-flow 24/7. The product continually evaluates the transaction activity of a customer over a 90-day period and organizes it in an easy-to-understand dashboard, allowing customers to quickly visualize their net growth without taking the time to calculate it themselves. Kabbage’s customer base of over 220,000 small businesses has immediate access.
As a leader in predictive analytics and artificial intelligence for small businesses, Kabbage Insights produces personalized forecasts to predict the future cash position of a business. Customers can then set a desired low-balance threshold and receive automated alerts if accounts are predicted to dip below it, empowering small businesses to identify, act upon and prevent cash deficits before they occur.
Paired with the Kabbage Small Business Revenue Index, Kabbage Insights is also the first product available that allows small businesses to compare their company’s performance to similarly-sized businesses operating in their state and industry. The result is an unparalleled cash-flow tool that’s free for small businesses, helping them to anticipate changes, benchmark their growth, plan ahead and make more confident business decisions like when to cut expenses, invest or borrow.
With Kabbage Insights, small businesses can:
- Review cash-flow on the go via the intuitive mobile dashboard.
- Analyze daily performance and review money movement at a glance.
- Borrow strategically with forecast data to inform funding decisions.
- Save time, as studies show 91 percent of small business owners spend as many as 20 hours per week manually calculating cash flow.
“As a small business owner for many years, I spent many sleepless nights trying to figure out whether I’d have the cash to pay my various expenses, including payroll at the end of the month and it’s been a mission of mine to solve this ubiquitous problem for all small business owners ever since,” said Kabbage CEO Rob Frohwein. “Kabbage is pleased to launch Insights, taking on this burden for small business owners and providing them with cash flow analyses that large enterprises have at their fingertips. We will continue to level the playing field for the small business owner.”
About Kabbage
Kabbage, Inc., headquartered in Atlanta, is a data and technology company providing
small businesses cash flow solutions. Its suite of products includes Kabbage Payments, helping small businesses get paid and access the money they earn faster, Kabbage Funding, providing access to flexible lines of credit in minutes, and Kabbage Insights, a powerful and predictive tool to calculate cash flow. To date, Kabbage has provided more than 220,000 U.S. small businesses access to over $9 billion of working capital. Kabbage is funded and backed by leading investors, including the SoftBank Vision Fund, BlueRun Ventures, WildCast Venture Partners, Thomvest Ventures and others. All Kabbage U.S.-based loans are issued by Celtic Bank, a Utah-Chartered Industrial Bank, Member FDIC. Kabbage Payments, LLC, a subsidiary of Kabbage, Inc., is a registered Payment Service Provider/Payment Facilitator sponsored by Fifth ThirdBank, N.A., Cincinnati, OH. For more information, please visit www.kabbage.com.
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2020 and Beyond – A Look Ahead
March 3, 2020
With the doors to 2019 firmly closed, alternative financing industry executives are excited about the new decade and the prospects that lie ahead. There are new products to showcase, new competitors to contend with and new customers to pursue as alternative financing continues to gain traction.
Executives reading the tea leaves are overwhelming bullish on the alternative financing industry—and for good reasons. In 2019, merchant cash advances and daily payment small business loan products alone exceeded more than $20 billion a year in originations, AltFinanceDaily’s reporting shows.
Confidence in the industry is only slightly curtailed by certain regulatory, political competitive and economic unknowns lurking in the background—adding an element of intrigue to what could be an exciting new year.
Here, then, are a few things to look out for in 2020 and beyond.
Regulatory developments
There are a number of different items that could be on the regulatory agenda this year, both on the state and federal level. Major areas to watch include:
- Broker licensing. There’s a movement afoot to crack down on rogue brokers by instituting licensing requirements. New York, for example, has proposed legislation that would cover small business lenders, merchant cash advance companies, factors, and leasing companies for transactions under $500,000. California has a licensing law in place, but it only pertains to loans, says Steve Denis, executive director of the Small Business Finance Association. Many funders are generally in favor of broader licensing requirements, citing perceived benefits to brokers, funders, customers and the industry overall. The devil, of course, will be in the details.
- Interest rate caps. Congress is weighing legislation that would set a national interest rate cap of 36%, including fees, for most personal loans, in an effort to stamp out predatory lending practices. A fair number of states already have enacted interest rate caps for consumer loans, with California recently joining the pack, but thus far there has been no national standard. While it is too early to tell the bill’s fate, proponents say it will provide needed protections against gouging, while critics, such as Lend Academy’s Peter Renton, contend it will have the “opposite impact on the consumers it seeks to protect.”
- Loan information and rate disclosures. There continues to be ample debate around exactly what firms should be required to disclose to customers and what metrics are most appropriate for consumers and businesses to use when comparing offerings. This year could be the one in which multiple states move ahead with efforts to clamp down on disclosures so borrowers can more easily compare offerings, industry watchers say. Notably, a recent Federal Reserve study on non-bank small business finance providers indicates that the likelihood of approval and speed are more important than cost in motivating borrowers, though this may not defer policymakers from moving ahead with disclosure requirements.
“THIS WILL DRIVE COMMISSION DOWN FOR THE INDUSTRY”
If these types of requirements go forward, Jared Weitz, chief executive of United Capital generally expects to see commissions take a hit. “This will drive commission down for the industry, but some companies may not be as impacted, depending on their product mix, cost per lead and cost per acquisition and overall company structure,” he says.
- Madden aftermath. The FDIC and OCC recently proposed rules to counteract the negative effects of the 2015 Madden v. Midland Funding LLC case, which wreaked havoc in the consumer and business loan markets in New York, Connecticut, and Vermont. “These proposals would clarify that the loan continues to be ‘valid’ even after it is sold to a nonbank, meaning that the nonbank can collect the rates and fees as initially contracted by the bank,” says Catherine Brennan, partner in the Hanover, Maryland office of law firm Hudson Cook. With the comments due at the end of January, “2020 is going to be a very important year for bank and nonbank partnerships,” she says.
- Possible changes to the accredited investor definition. In December 2019, the Securities and Exchange Commission voted to propose amendments to the accredited investor definition. Some industry players see expanding the definition as a positive step, but are hesitant to crack open the champagne just yet since nothing’s been finalized. “I would like to see it broadened even further than they are proposed right now,” says Brett Crosby, co-founder and chief operating officer at PeerStreet, a platform for investing in real estate-backed loans. The proposals “are a step in the right direction, but I’m not sure they go far enough,” he says.
Precisely how various regulatory initiatives will play out in 2020 remains to be seen. Some states, for example, may decide to be more aggressive with respect to policy-making, while others might take more of a wait-and-see approach.
“I think states are still piecing together exactly what they want to accomplish. There are too many missing pieces to the puzzle,” says Chad Otar, founder and chief executive at Lending Valley Inc.
As different initiatives work their way through the legislative process, funders are hoping for consistency rather than a patchwork of metrics applied unevenly by different states. The latter could have significant repercussions for firms that do business in multiple states and could eventually cause some of them to pare back operations, industry watchers say.
“While we commend the state-level activity, we hope that there will be uniformity across the country when it comes to legislation to avoid confusion and create consistency” for borrowers, says Darren Schulman, president of 6th Avenue Capital.
Election uncertainty
The outcome of this year’s presidential election could have a profound effect on the regulatory climate for alternative lenders. Alternative financing and fintech charters could move higher on the docket if there’s a shift in the top brass (which, of course, could bring a new Treasury Secretary and/or CFPB head) or if the Senate flips to Democratic control.
If a White House changing of the guard does occur, the impact could be even more profound depending on which Democratic candidate secures the top spot. It’s all speculation now, but alternative financers will likely be sticking to the election polls like glue in an attempt to gain more clarity.
Election-year uncertainty also needs to be factored into underwriting risk. Some industries and companies may be more susceptible to this risk, and funders have to plan accordingly in their projections. It’s not a reason to make wholesale underwriting changes, but it’s something to be mindful of, says Heather Francis, chief executive of Elevate Funding in Gainesville, Florida.
“Any election year is going to be a little bit volatile in terms of how you operate your business,” she says.
Competition
The competitive landscape continues to shift for alternative lenders and funders, with technology giants such as PayPal, Amazon and Square now counted among the largest small business funders in the marketplace. This is a notable shift from several years ago when their footprint had not yet made a dent.
This growth is expected to continue driving competition in 2020. Larger companies with strong technology have a competitive advantage in making loans and cash advances because they already have the customer and information about the customer, says industry attorney Paul Rianda, who heads a law firm in Irvine, Calif.
It’s also harder for merchants to default because these companies are providing them payment processing services and paying them on a daily or monthly basis. This is in contrast to an MCA provider that’s using ACH to take payments out of the merchant’s bank account, which can be blocked by the merchant at any time. “Because of that lower risk factor, they’re able to give a better deal to merchants,” Rianda says.
Increased competition has been driving rates down, especially for merchants with strong credit, which means high-quality merchants are getting especially good deals—at much less expensive rates than a business credit card could offer, says Nathan Abadi, president of Excel Capital Management. “The prime market is expanding tremendously,” he says.
Certain funders are willing to go out two years now on first positions, he says, which was never done before.
Even for non-prime clients, funders are getting more creative in how they structure deals. For instance, funders are offering longer terms—12 to 15 months—on a second position or nine to 12 months on a third position, he says. “People would think you were out of your mind to do that a year ago,” he says.
Because there’s so much money funneling into the industry, competition is more fierce, but firms still have to be smart about how they do business, Abadi says.
Meanwhile, heightened competition means it’s a brokers market, says Weitz of United Capital. A lot of lenders and funders have similar rates and terms, so it comes down to which firms have the best relationship with brokers. “Brokers are going to send the deals to whoever is treating their files the best and giving them the best pricing,” he says.
Profitability, access to capital and business-related shifts
Executives are confident that despite increased competition from deep-pocket players, there’s enough business to go around. But for firms that want to excel in 2020, there’s work to be done.
Funders in 2020 should focus on profitability and access to capital—the most important factors for firms that want to grow, says David Goldin, principal at Lender Capital Partners and president and chief executive of Capify. This year could also be one in which funders more seriously consider consolidation. There hasn’t been a lot in the industry as of yet, but Goldin predicts it’s only a matter of time.
“A lot of MCA providers could benefit from economies of scale. I think the day is coming,” he says.
He also says 2020 should be a year when firms try new things to distinguish themselves. He contends there are too many copycats in the industry. Most firms acquire leads the same way and aren’t doing enough to differentiate. To stand out, funders should start specializing and become known for certain industries, “instead of trying to be all things to all businesses,” he says.
Some alternative financing companies might consider expanding their business models to become more of a one-stop shop—following in the footsteps of Intuit, Square and others that have shown the concept to be sound.
Sam Taussig, global head of policy at Kabbage, predicts that alternative funding platforms will increasingly shift toward providing more unified services so the customer doesn’t have to leave the environment to do banking and other types of financial transactions. It’s a direction Kabbage is going by expanding into payment processing as part of its new suite of cash-flow management solutions for small businesses.
“Customers have seen and experienced how seamless and simple and easy it is to work with some of the nontraditional funders,” he says. “Small businesses want holistic solutions—they prefer to work with one provider as opposed to multiple ones,” he says.
Open banking
This year could be a “pivotal” year for open banking in the U.S., says Taussig of Kabbage. “This issue will come to the forefront, and I think we will have more clarity about how customers can permission their data, to whom and when,” he says.
Open banking refers to the use of open APIs (application program interfaces) that enable third-party developers to build applications and services around a financial institution. The U.K. was a forerunner in implementing open banking, and the movement has been making inroads in other countries as well, which is helping U.S. regulators warm up to the idea. “Open banking is going to be a lively debate in Washington in 2020. It’ll be about finding the balance between policymakers and customers and banks,” Taussig says.
The funding environment
While there has been some chatter about a looming recession and there are various regulatory and competitive headwinds facing the industry, funding and lending executives are mostly optimistic for the year ahead.
“If December 2019 is an early indicator of 2020, we’re off to a good start. I think it’s going to be a great year for our industry,” says Abadi of Excel Capital.
Democrats Call for Interest-Free Loans for Small Businesses Affected by Coronavirus
March 2, 2020
The leaders of the Democratic Party in the Senate and House, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, respectively, have released a joint statement outlining their perspective on providing emergency funding to combat the coronavirus, otherwise known as covid-19. Among the provisions listed is a demand that “interest-free loans are made available for small businesses impacted by the outbreak.”
The statement comes at a point when the government has yet to confirm the amount of funds dedicated to treating and preparing against covid-19. Schumer has proposed devoting $8 billion, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has said that even $2 billion would be too little, opting instead for $4 billion. McCarthy has agreed with the Democrat leaders, saying that emergency funds should be not be stolen or transferred from other funds or emergency allotments. This position goes up against President Trump’s request for $1.25 billion from various existing funds, including $535 million from the Ebola preparedness fund.
Republican Senator Tom Cole expressed his uncertainty regarding the request, saying that “I just don’t think we should be penny-wise and pound-foolish on that.”
As well as calling for interest-free loans, the statement requests assurances that Trump will use the funds purely to fight covid-19 and other infectious diseases, that eventual vaccines will be available and affordable for all, and that state and local authorities will be reimbursed for costs incurred while assisting the federal response.
It is unsure whether or not these loans will actually come into play. While there does appear to be bipartisan cooperation within the House and Senate, the government seems to only have begun taking the virus seriously this week after it spread from China to Iran and Italy, and the first infection from an unknown source in America was diagnosed in California.
“We’re coming close to a bipartisan agreement in the Congress as to how we can go forward with a number that is a good start,” Pelosi told reporters in her weekly press conference. “We don’t know how much we will need. Hopefully, not so much more because prevention will work. But nonetheless, we have to be ready to do what we need to do.”
Lendio Plans Development and Growth With $55 Million Series E
February 27, 2020
Today Lendio announced that it raised $55 million as part of its series E funding round. This included $31 million in equity led by Mercato Partners Traverse Fund and a $24 million debt facility from Signature Bank.
“We think that we’re just getting started, that there’s a really large opportunity in front of us and we’re excited that this round will give us the fuel that we need to continue to grow,” Lendio CEO Brock Blake told AltFinanceDaily in a call. “We have a few different reasons for pulling together the round, but primarily, it’s all around investing in organic growth through partnerships and different marketing channels.”
Asked where these funding rounds may continue in an F, G, and H, Blake was unsure, saying that “every time we raise a round we do it with the expectation that it will be the last round.”
The funds in part will be used to further develop Lendio’s integrated lenders services, which are a set of tools used to identify which loan product and lender are the best match for a business owner; as well as the expansion of Sunrise, the bookkeeping platform Lendio acquired in 2019.
How Hot Is The Legal Cannabis Industry?
February 24, 2020
One gauge of the commercial excitement over legal weed, medical marijuana and cannabis’s byproducts could be witnessed at the Las Vegas Convention Center in early December where the Marijuana Business Conference & Expo was overflowing with 31,523 attendees.
Appealing to that audience—roughly the population of Juneau, Alaska—were more than 1,300 exhibitors who hailed from 79 different countries and touted products and services as varied as advancements in crop cultivation, medicinal breakthroughs, and innovative consumer products like marijuana-laden pastry.
That’s some 30% more than the 1,000 vendors who packed into the Central Hall in 2018 and about double the 678 who were showing off their wares in the smaller North Hall two years ago, reports Chris Day, vice president for external relations at Denver-based Marijuana Business Daily, which follows the cannabis industry and sponsored the Las Vegas trade show.
“In December, 2019,” Day declares, “we did not have to turn people away because we expanded. We had enough room for exhibitors but we needed both halls.” Unable to resist a boast, he adds: “We’ve been the fastest-growing trade show in the country three years running.”
One face in the December crowd was seasoned financial broker Scott Jordan, the Denver-based managing director of the Alternative Finance Network. He was occupying a booth accompanied by two attractive female models in fetching T-shirts emblazoned with the message: “How much would you borrow at zero percent?”
The young ladies’ arresting appearance and the message worked to the extent that “it got people talking,” Jordan says. As for the zero-interest rate, it’s not exactly free money. “I’ve got a product that puts together a line of credit,” he explains, “and after they receive the line of credit, it charges them a fee.”
As a broker, Jordan does the spade work of poring through a cannabis business’s financial statements and business model before he tees up a deal—typically between $250,000 and $750,000—to “a cadre” of 35 lenders in 10 states. He’ll ascertain whether the best funding option should be structured as equipment leasing, a working-capital loan, a revolving line of credit, project financing, or a real estate loan.
One recent cannabis deal that Jordan midwifed involved a “post-revenue, pre-profitability” manufacturing and processing company headquartered in Colorado. The financing, which closed in April, 2019, involved a pair of four-year term loans: one for $400,000 to refinance existing machinery, and a second for an additional $500,000 to acquire new laboratory equipment. Both credits carried interest rates in the “mid-teens,” he says, and were secured by the equipment.
Once the debt financing was in place, the manufacturing operation was “fully functioning,” Jordan reports, paving the way for the company to raise $30 million in venture capital financing. Jordan argues that “even if they pay a 10-20 percent interest rate, it’s better to preserve equity and finance through a normal type of loan. If you need an extraction machine or packaging equipment,” he adds, “why give up equity if you can finance it through debt?”
Jordan’s reasoning appears to sit well with clients and funders alike. Since 2014, he has brokered 85 transactions worth $33 million. He reckons that two out of three deals that he takes to funders meet with success. “My best year was 2015 because there were only a few competitors and I was the only guy on the block,” he says.
As the country steadily decriminalizes and legalizes pot, however, early market entrants like Jordan no longer have the cannabis business all to themselves. Thirteen states have legalized recreational marijuana for adults. These include California, Colorado, Oregon, Washington and Nevada in the West; Illinois and Michigan in the Midwest; and Massachusetts, Vermont and Maine in the East. Hawaii and Alaska permit it and, if you’re over 21, you can legally grow, smoke or ingest weed in the District of Columbia, but it cannot be sold commercially.
An additional 24 states have approved medical marijuana. While research on cannabis’s medicinal properties remains thin—largely because of objections by federal law enforcement—it is being prescribed for a range of maladies, including cancer, glaucoma, epilepsy, Crohn’s Disease, multiple sclerosis, nausea, and pain. [“The marijuana plant contains more than 100 different chemicals called cannabinoids,” according to WebMD. “Each one has a different effect on the body. Delta-9- tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD) are the main chemicals used in medicine. THC also produces the ‘high’ people feel when they smoke marijuana or eat foods containing it.”]
Industry data assembled by MJBizDaily reflects both the broad acceptance of legal cannabis use and its increasing commercial popularity. U.S. revenues from legal weed and its byproducts are expected to clear $16.4 billion this year, a 40% growth rate over the $11.75 billion in estimated revenues for 2019. The legal cannabis industry now employs about 200,000 persons in the U.S., about the same number as flight attendants (120,000) and veterinarians (80,00) combined.
For more evidence that the cannabis market is hot look no further than the state of Illinois, where recreational marijuana went on sale Jan. 1, 2020. The Prairie State’s governor also pardoned some 11,000 citizens with criminal records for possession and the sale of low levels of marijuana.
“We’re showing that sales were close to $3.2 million on the first day of 2020,” says MJBiz’s Day. “Illinois is the big story right now,” he adds. “Anytime a new state opens up in the market, you’re seeing enormous pent-up demand and enthusiasm.”
Even as the cannabis industry takes giant strides toward public acceptance, the plant continues to face hostility from the U.S. federal government, which has criminalized its use for 80 years. Marijuana remains classified by the Drug Enforcement Agency as a Schedule 1 drug, keeping company with heroin, LSD and Ecstasy.
That designation has also made it hard for the cannabis industry to engage in simple financial transactions, much less obtain financing. “Despite the majority of states’ having adopted cannabis regimes of some kind, federal law prevents banks from banking cannabis businesses,” Joanne Sherwood, president and chief executive at Citywide Banks, a $2.3 billion-asset bank headquartered in Denver, testified to Congress last summer. “The Controlled Substances Act,” added Sherwood, who is chair of the Colorado Bankers Association, “classifies cannabis as an illegal drug and prohibits its use for any purpose. For banks, that means that any person or business that derives revenue from a cannabis firm is violating federal law and consequently putting their own access to banking services at risk.”
And despite the herculean efforts by the cannabis industry to soften its image, obtaining financing from traditional sources like pension funds, insurance companies and university endowments remains a daunting proposition as well, says David Traylor, senior managing director at Golden Eagle Partners. His four-person, boutique investment fund, which makes equity investments in up-and-coming cannabis companies, relies on wealthy individuals and family offices for the bulk of its funds.
“Capital is hard to come by for this industry,” Traylor says. “From day one, most venture capitalists have been staying out of it. It’s still illegal in many states and their limited partners are endowments like Harvard and Yale, which see marijuana as the antithesis of education.”
Sarah Sanger, chief financial officer at Oak Investment Funds, a real estate investment firm based in Oakland, says: “There’s a great deal of economic activity in California but it’s stymied by the lack of financing and difficulty with changing regulations. It provides an opportunity for really expensive debt from private investors willing to do due diligence.”
That absence of establishment financing has opened up a plethora of opportunities for alternative funders, and not just in agriculture and plant cultivation. While agriculture represents the bedrock of the industry there is no downstream product, of course, without the cannabis leaf— growing and harvesting cannabis is just one stage of the industry’s life cycle.
MJBiz’s Day notes, for example, that that the legal cannabis industry is regulated for safety, so growers must show that “the flower has no molds or contaminants.” That means that crops are subject to rigorous testing and decontamination, which requires both materials and expertise. To process the leaf and develop “infused products” by extracting cannabis-based oils entails the purchase and deployment of costly technology. Packaging and labeling along with tracking systems that, Day says, “are stricter than in other places” are also key components of the farm-to-market supply chain.
Meanwhile, in an ongoing effort to appeal to a fresh cohort of customers, Jordan notes, the cannabis industry continues to develop innovative uses for the plant. “There are so many applications and new products that keep appearing, like ice cream with marijuana, vaporizers, inhalers, and syrup,” he says. “Now, there are mints—something I hadn’t seen before—and different ways to ingest the product and get high and not look like a druggie.”
Jordan Fein, chief executive at Greenbox Capital in Miami, says his firm prefers to fund downstream companies selling cannabis products. “We do agricultural lending but it’s less attractive and harder to qualify the business. It’s not as tangible as a retail business which will have a website and product reviews. The same goes for edibles.”
Recent Greenbox Capital deals in 2019, Fein says, included one with merchant cash advances of $80,000 and $60,000 in growth capital to a Colorado dispensary. The operation put the money to work adding two retail outlets during the year, he says, bringing to four its total number of storefronts. In addition to cannabis flower, the dispensary sells “edibles, tinctures, lotions, and wax concentrates,” Fein reports. Both short term cash advances require regular ACH payments.
Greenbox Capital also made a $135,000 cash advance to a cannabis-testing laboratory in Southern California in August, 2019 for the purchase of sophisticated equipment. The company, he says, is doing $140,000-a-month in revenue and cashflow is strong and on the rise.
“Greenbox is always interested in higher risk deals,” Fein says, noting that banking services remain off limits to legal cannabis firms. “But we fund them for the same reason we fund lawyers and auto sales—things that most others will not do. There’s nothing wrong with risk,” he adds, “as long as you clearly assign a proper value to the deal and price to it.”
Steve Sheinbaum, a New York broker and chief executive at Circadian Funding, has unabashedly climbed aboard the cannabis bandwagon. “The market is exploding and it’s attractive to lenders because it’s a product people can put their hands on,” he says. “If I’m dealing with a grower, I can leverage real estate and usually there’s equipment. If they’re producing, there’s inventory and I can look at the income statement to see what kind of cash flow the business is generating.”
He recently brokered a $10 million loan for a licensed grower and distributor of medicinal marijuana in New England with monthly revenues of $3-$4 million. The credit bore a 17% annual percentage rate and a six-year maturity, he says. The deal was brought to Circadian by a private equity investor who was looking to grow the enterprise tenfold. The deal, which was interest-only, was secured by a second position on real estate and a lien on the borrower’s license. “The lender was comfortable with the interest-only loan,” Sheinbaum explains. “They can refinance in six years.”
In another recent deal, Circadian arranged an unsecured merchant cash advance for $300,000 to a Pacific Northwest technology company developing specialty, point-of-sale software for the cannabis industry. The firm showed monthly revenues of $300,000.
“It’s not federally permitted for cannabis firms to take payments from Visa, Mastercard or American Express,” Sheinbaum explains. “But this technology company is using debit or credit cards to pay for cryptocurrency which is stored on a prepaid card which customers can then use to purchase cannabis.”
The tech company had been struggling to find money and Sheinbaum took satisfaction in a deal announcement that went out in an e-mail to the industry. “Funding complicated deals is what gets our blood flowing,” Sheinbaum wrote. “Anyone can get a restaurant or dentist funded. No one needs help with that.”
Manny Columbie, a Miami-based senior funding manager at H&J Capital Group, an Orlando firm, reports funding agricultural and dispensary businesses in California, Colorado and Washington State. In the Evergreen State, he says, he recently provided funding to a woman who owned a marijuana-themed café connected to a cannabis dispensary. The deal went through after examining her recent bank statements and two years of federal tax returns.
“The best thing about lending to people in this industry is their ability to repay,” Columbie says. “They’re never lacking in funds.”
He provided more detail on a deal currently in the works involving a physician in Irvine, California, with an 800-plus credit score from the rating agency Experian and personal tax returns showing $2 million in annual income. The doctor, Columbie says, has been making transdermal patches infused with THC in addition to his medical practice and needs specialized equipment to lower his manufacturing costs to 55 cents per patch. The patches sell for $40-$60 apiece, Columbie says, depending on the THC content.
If the deal goes through and is approved by H&J’s credit committee, the physician would likely be extended a $350,000 loan with a 10-year maturity secured by the Chinese-manufactured equipment. Factoring in the doctor’s excellent credit and other positives, the interest rate on the credit could be as low as 5%-7%.
While the environment for legal cannabis seems to grow more favorable by the day, market participants urge funders to remain circumspect. One remaining fly in the legal cannabis ointment has been the persistence of an illegal black market. Estimates are that as much as 60% to 80% of the marijuana market in California is illicit, says Craig Behnke, an equity analyst at MJBiz.
Law-abiding businesses must also contend with overbearing regulators and high taxation. The California Department of Fee and Tax Administration recently jacked up its excise tax on cannabis to 80%, effective on Jan. 1, 2020.
And the state’s constabulary isn’t helping matters either, notes Sanger of Oak Funds. “There are going to be a lot of operators that end up being losers because of the regulatory environment,” she says. “Law enforcement is using all of its resources to make sure legitimate businesses are following the rules instead of clamping down on black market activity. That makes it harder for legitimate retailers to make money because people are still shopping in the black market.”
The recent collapse of the shares of publicly traded Canadian cannabis companies, which some blame in part on the illicit competition from the black market, also stands as a cautionary sign. Last August, the Motley Fool listed ten “Pot Stocks”—including Canopy Growth and Aurora Cannabis, both of which are listed on the New York Stock Exchange—that together lost a stunning $20 billion in market capitalization.
The drubbing that heedless investors have taken in the Canadian stocks reminds analyst Behnke of the debacle in dotcom stocks back in 2001-2002, but with a big difference. “The dotcoms were a brand-new invention and people had no idea how big the Internet companies would be,” he told AltFinanceDaily. “But cannabis has been around for a thousand years. I feel like it was a shame on investors and the companies. This shouldn’t have happened.”
Craig Hecker Acquires Stake in Bitty Advance
February 21, 2020
Fort Lauderdale FL – February 21, 2020: Craig Hecker has acquired an equity stake in Bitty Advance.
Hecker is a pioneer and leader in the merchant cash advance industry who founded, grew, and sold Rapid Capital Funding.
Bitty Advance CEO Edward Siegel first crossed paths with Hecker in 2009 when Siegel was employed by Rapid Capital Funding. Siegel since then went on to launch Bitty Advance in 2017 to cater exclusively to small businesses that generate less than $100,000 in annual revenue.
Hecker will be providing valuable thought leadership and capital to help Bitty continue to grow and become the leader in the space.
“I am thrilled to bring on Craig with all of his MCA experience and his creative thinking to help scale Bitty’s growth,” Siegel says.
The start of the partnership was memorialized with a video, attached below.
About Bitty Advance
Bitty Advance was founded in 2017 and is based in Fort Lauderdale, FL. To reach the company, call 800-324-3863 or email partners@bittyadvance.com.
Patreon Adds MCA-like Product With Patreon Capital
February 20, 2020
Patreon, the membership platform that provides payment and subscription services for creators, will now start funding those artists that are on its site through Patreon Capital. Said to be modeled after Shopify Capital, the service will be available to certain creators initially, with Patreon reaching out directly to them to offer merchant cash advances.
The move comes after CEO Jack Conte had been quoted in January saying that “The reality is Patreon needs to build new businesses and new services and new revenue lines in order to build a sustainable business.”
It seems like this new service is part of a trend that has overtaken tech companies recently, best exemplified by the Apple Card, wherein established players, worried about longevity, are moving further into financial services, hoping to get long-lasting hooks into their customers.
Historically, Patreon has made money by taking a 5% cut from the subscription payments made to artists on its platform, with a further 5% going towards covering transaction fees, and the remaining 90% being left for the artist, who retains complete ownership of their work. It currently has over 100,000 creators on its site and over three million active monthly users. Contributions begin at $1, with content being unlocked in exchange for payment. Thus far, Patreon has paid out over $1 billion.
It has been reported that about a dozen deals have been made between creators and Patreon Capital so far. Hot Pod News ran a story featuring one such case, in which Multitude, a Brooklyn-based podcast studio, disclosed that it took funding of $75,000 over two years in order to pay the SAG-AFTRA rates of the actors it wanted to employ for a new audio sitcom titled Next Stop.
“We were running into this problem where we have a ton of great ideas, but because we’re a small business, we constantly have to decide between putting money towards paying our people and getting more equipment versus saving it up for a bigger project,” Multitude’s CEO, Amanda McLoughlin, told Hot Pod.
The premium attached to the financing was not revealed, however Multitude did note that the revenues of one of the studio’s other shows, Join the Party, would be taken as collateral if Next Stop is not profitable enough to pay the premium after two years.
“This arrangement is directly tied to the fact that we have successful podcasts making money on Patreon, and that we’ve already invested in the Patreon system to pay this stuff back,” comment Eric Silver, Multitude’s Head of Creative, underlining how Patreon Capital is linked with the analytics of Patreon’s base service. Much like how Amazon uses sales metrics and user data to gauge which retailers to lend to on its own marketplace, Patreon appears to be making use of seven years of data on its creators to determine who is best positioned to receive funding.
“Patreon has access to all the data about a creator’s earnings history, what they offer as benefits, how much they engage with their patrons … everything needed to forecast their earnings and retention, without a creator even needing to submit an application.” Patreon VP of Finance Carlos Cabrero stated. “This would be essentially impossible for a bank to replicate.”
