Here are just a few of the things we have been working on recently…
$6,000,000 Line of Credit to Import Telehandlers
A small privately owned company got a big the opportunity – to be the exclusive importer of telehandlers to the United States. Taking advantage of that opportunity required not just a lot of capital; it also required a financial partner. The machines need to be paid for before they are shipped from Italy. They need to pass U.S. customs inspection which could take several weeks and then the units need to be placed in service with end users throughout the United States. The owners of the business had provided the initial capital in the business and did not want to personally guarantee the future capital that the company would need to grow. Fountain Partners came up with a payment structure that could tolerate the high degree of uncertainty around the time required for the machines to ship and pass through customs and spared the owners of pledging their personal asset or guaranteeing the lease.
$1,000,000 Expansion for Urban Remedy
Whole Foods was very impressed with the sell through of Urban Remedy’s detox juice packs and ready to eat salads and bowls, so much so that it wanted to expand to all locations in Northern and Southern California. Ben Cain, the company’s VP of Finance and Operations had worked with Fountain Partners when he was at Revolution Foods and described the situation. Fountain was able to visit the company’s production facility in Richmond, CA and immediately offer financing not just for off the shelf equipment but also to address the need for custom branded cold cases located at Whole Foods. Urban Remedy was able to accelerate growth and keep up with the Whole Food’s roll out strategy.
$750,000 Seed Stage Leasing
This company was introduced to Fountain by another founder/client just as it was getting started. Though the company had just 5 employees and $125,000 raised from an seed equity investor, we liked the CEO and the business opportunity enough to offer a $750,000 line purposely designed to help the company accelerate growth and address a critical need in the business model – capital to acquire furniture. The company was able to raise over $3 million equity round led by some of the most well known venture capital firms within 45 days after we had the first $250,000 in furniture bought and placed with customers.
New and Follow on Investments in Machine Learning as a Service
Fountain Partners is known for its history financing cloud server and storage companies such as SoftLayer and DigitalOcean. Managers John Van Hooser and Tom Carter each have financed hosting, data centers and communications providers going back to the mid 1990s. During 2018 Fountain added substantially to its portfolio of technical service provider investments including companies dedicated to machine learning as a service. In addition to funding companies that have institutional venture capital sponsorship, Fountain also partners with companies that are backed by management, angel syndicates and corporate investors.
What about Race Cars? Sure we do that too…
Fountain Partners leased $500,000 worth of KTM and Ligier race cars for the performance driving school at the legendary Sonoma Raceway. Most of Fountain’s clients are backed by venture capital funds but we are happy to consider solid sole proprietorships such as the driving school. The company needed to take advantage of a unique opportunity with a firm that could respond quickly with highly customized repayment options. Fountain had previously financed tools and Formula 3 cars for this client in years past.
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