EXCLUSIVE: Beverly Hills-based film finance specialist Launch Financing is poised to scale up its short-term gap loan services for indie productions in the U.S., Canada and the UK having secured its first ever institutional $15M senior credit facility.
The film-lending arm of producer-financier Chris K. Daniels’ The Launch Company, has previously funded more than 60 media loans against tax credits, pre-sales and other committed production receivables.
Past recipient productions include thriller The Dutchman, black comedy Thumb and coming-of-age comedy The Marshmallow Experiment.
The new $15 million senior credit facility has been provided by specialty lender Pier Asset Management and is Launch Financing’s first institutional warehouse facility.
The line, extendable to $25 million over time, will enable Launch Financing to scale its short-term production lending to independent films in the U.S., Canada and the UK.
“A production’s money always comes slower than the production wants it to. Tax credits, bank closings, equity cashflow and distributor payments arrive on their own schedule, and the schedule is not the shoot’s,” said Daniels.
“We built a standardized loan structure that clears diligence in two to five business days and wires within forty-eight hours of signing, because that is the only thing a producer in prep actually needs from a lender. This facility allows us to expand beyond our current pipeline and work more closely with high-quality producers, production companies, agencies and studios, improving the process one film at a time.”
Launch Financing advances senior secured capital against money a production is set to receive and is repaid when that money arrives. Loans run eight to twenty-six weeks and are secured in first position against government production incentives, distributor minimum guarantees, pre-sales, committed equity, institutional capital and library-backed corporate guarantees.
The money typically covers production cashflow while a bank or institutional lender closes, as well as cast escrow and union deposits, production payroll and finishing funds.
Launch Financing sits inside The Launch Company alongside Launch Development, which develops and packages film projects; Cinelaunch, the company’s business-affairs and back-office platform; and Launch North, its physical production operation in Toronto.
The lending team has sat on both sides of the table, as producers who have borrowed against tax credits and pre-sales and as the institutional capital that structures those loans.
Daniels, who is also a strategic partner at Esme Grace, the boutique firm behind Michael Mann’s Ferrari, serves as chief executive officer of The Launch Company and its lending arm. Wyatt Cavalier is Launch Financing JV’s chief investment officer , and Jess Mastro is head of development for The Launch Company.