Tag: Matthew Helderman
Lending Club offers a great consumer solution — loans, lines of credit and access to capital that traditional banking and institutional lending cannot provide. Additionally — Lending Club offers individuals the opportunity to make investments through the providing of capital to said consumers. As banks continue tightening their abilities to service specific opportunities (especially those in media, entertainment & technology) — BondIt has found an opportunity to provide value and customer service in the growing independent market place. As film & media producers we knew the realities of getting a project financed, produced and recouped — it is never a pleasant ride. Combining this reality with the financial and technology background our team brought to the table — BondIt continuing to expand by offering additional services, industry value and a growing fund.
After the collapse of 2008 – entertainment banks began taking less risk – which in turn meant it became more difficult for independent film producers, filmmakers and film sales agents to access the capital (whether equity or debt) they needed to complete, gap, bridge, leverage or develop their project.
Today in 2014 – these same entertainment banks have adjusted their mentalities and aren’t necessarily “evacuating” the niche’s they once partook in — but they are certainly not re-visiting the previous opportunities of the pre-2008 era.
When we launched BondIt in early 2014 – we wanted to provide liquidity for union deposits (SAG, DGA, IATSE, etc…) and we expanded on that model as the demand grew for our services to broaden.
In the past few weeks we’ve begun beta testing our newest form of financing by offering liquidity once more – but this time to filmmakers, sales agencies and individual agents.
Began as producers & recognized problem
Before launching BondIt – our speciality financing operations to cover union deposits for feature films and theater productions – our team at Buffalo 8 Productions produced over 30 feature films.
Ranging in budgets and sizes — we dealt with the development, pre-production and post-production process — and branched in to the sales side of the business out of the necessity to build a revenue stream capable of sustaining a functioning business model.
As we grew as producers the company grew as well — offering new projects, larger budgets and further opportunities for the model we had built to pivot, adjust and expand.
More than anything – we recognized that capital allocations had changed for many of our colleagues as producers and production companies – with tight operating budgets and even tighter margins of profitability.
By Matthew Helderman, & Luke Taylor