Billion With A B: Yieldstreet’s Introduction to the Private Business Credit World

Anderson and Curran already had a working relationship with Weisz and Yieldstreet, having collaborated on several potential transactions previously. With the success of i2B Capital providing what Anderson and Curran both call a “proof of concept,” launching a private business credit vertical just made sense.

“Yieldstreet is a growth-oriented fintech company and they were looking for a platform that they could scale,” Anderson says. “We provided that diverse asset class approach together with our fundamental belief that financing growing companies is the best way to grow an asset-based platform.”

“It just seemed like there’s a voracious appetite for well underwritten, collateralized deals that produce high single, low double digit predictable income, which is what we do,” Curran says. “And we thought we just needed to figure out how to do what Barbara and I do here at Yieldstreet.”

Just as there is a wide variance in the deal sizes for this new group, there is also variance in the transaction types and terms it offers. These include first in last out facilities, growth capital facilities, direct lending as well as participation with other secured lenders. When it comes to terms, although the group wants to grow alongside its borrowers, it can provide terms of as few as six months all the way up to 48 months.

Dynamic Duo

Anderson comes from a credit-focused background. After completing her 18 months of credit training, she spent time as a loan officer at a commercial bank before going on to senior management positions in factoring and inventory lending, ultimately landing at VION Receivable Investments, a global distressed debt buyer, where she and Curran became colleagues.

Curran was already familiar with Anderson, as they had collaborated on receivable appraisals and liquidations while she was at her former employer, National City Bank, but when he made Anderson VION’s first hire, they were finally on the same team officially. In the next 12 years, together they built a successful business at VION before co-founding i2B Capital together and launching a new vertical with Yieldstreet.

“Barbara is like having a professor that’s teaching a master class every day and our entire team is learning from her,” Curran says. “She’ll communicate and over-communicate, and it has evolved into a great complement for our business because she is the master professor on all of the logistics of how we get our deals through the process.”

A Billion Dollar Business

“I think people will love our message because we really have this two-sided marketplace,” Curran says. “At a time where there’s a pandemic, people are scared and the stock market is volatile, and we have this unique balance where we have seekers of income that want to invest in the notes that we provide on the platform here at Yieldstreet. We also have borrowers that need a reliable capital source that can grow with their business.”

Curran adheres to the mantra of beginning with the end in mind. Yieldstreet’s ambitions go well beyond these first few months and that gets back to how much it wants to focus on growth. Anderson does not shy away from the group’s ambition to help in that regard, as she hopes to build on the long-term growth partnerships she and the group form with its borrowers.

“I think private business credit can be a billion-dollar business at Yieldstreet,” Anderson says. “I’m excited about the opportunity to pursue that goal and leverage all of the relationships Larry and I have cultivated in the industry to achieve it [in] the near term. Now that we have already closed our first two deals in July, we are hopeful that they will launch on the platform for our investors in August. And that’s a great testament to all the folks here that worked so hard to get us up and running, to get the word out and to support our efforts, so we could get several transactions done early in our execution plan. Now we’re looking forward to our first launches, and from there, the sky’s the limit.” •

– By Phil Neuffer, Managing Editor, ABF Journal