⏰ 72 Hours to Funded: When Fast Money Beats Cheap Money

Welcome to Advance Genie, weekly newsletter that helps operators in highly stigmatized industries find alternative financing methods.

A cannabis operator needs $1.5 million. Alternative lender funds them in 72 hours.

A new staffing agency needs same-week capital for payroll. Gets a $250,000 facility and launches.

A supplier lands a Fortune 500 customer paying net-60. Invoice financing puts $200,000 in their account immediately.

Traditional banks take months. Alternative lenders move in days.

In this edition: how frontier operators are turning speed into competitive advantage. Three real funding stories with timelines. Why alternative lenders move faster than banks. And the decision framework for when to pay the speed premium.

When timing determines outcomes, the fastest capital wins.

The 72-Hour Funding Reality

In 2024, Tradecraft Farms hit a wall.

The Southern California cannabis operator had been scaling since 2010, building a vertically-integrated business with four retail stores and producing over 20,000 pounds of flower annually.

They were deep into a major capital expansion when COVID-related delays and construction cost overruns created a $1.5 million shortfall.

Traditional lenders wouldn't touch cannabis. Private equity moved too slowly. Waiting 18 months to self-fund meant missed revenue and stalled momentum.

Tradecraft's CFO, Geoff Yeterian, connected with an alternative lending company through a mutual contact.

From first conversation to funded: 72 hours.

The lender structured a custom bridge loan built around Tradecraft's cultivation timeline. With harvest months away, the loan required only interest-only payments during the quiet period, giving them runway to finish construction without draining liquidity.

The result?

Tradecraft doubled capacity. 1,100 indoor grow lights installed with 420 more coming. Expanded hoop house cultivation across dozens of acres. Increased manufacturing capabilities. Stronger infrastructure across the board.

Same Speed, Different Industry

In early 2025, a newly established temporary staffing agency began operations in multiple markets.

The founders brought years of industry experience and had already secured initial client relationships. They specialized in skilled workers, operating on a weekly payroll schedule while billing clients weekly.

The challenge: new business, no track record with traditional banks, immediate need for working capital to cover payroll before customer payments arrived.

An AR financing company delivered a $250,000 Accounts Receivable facility. The structure matched the agency's weekly invoicing and payroll cycles. The founders got immediate access to capital tied to customer invoices, ensuring payroll could be met without delays.

Today, the agency is positioned to expand into major markets including Chicago and Atlanta.

The Pattern Repeats

An alternative lender recently worked with a used industrial engine supplier who landed a Fortune 500 buyer. Strong demand, six-figure orders, solid relationship.

The problem: net-60 payment terms.

With over $400,000 in outstanding invoices, the supplier was stuck covering payroll, sourcing inventory, and managing overhead without access to those funds for two months.

The receivables financing structure: 50% advance up front ($200,000 on $400,000 in receivables), remaining 50% released when the customer pays minus a 1.5% fee.

$200,000 in their account immediately. Operations stabilized. Growth continued.

When Speed Beats Cost

Every CFO knows the cheapest capital is bank debt. But that calculation assumes timing doesn't matter.

In frontier industries, timing almost always matters.

The cannabis operator waiting 18 months to self-fund loses 18 months of capacity expansion. 

The staffing agency that can't fund payroll never opens. 

The supplier who turns down the Fortune 500 customer loses the relationship entirely.

The real question isn't "what's the lowest rate?" It's "what's the cost of not having capital when the opportunity window closes?"

The Math of Maturity Walls

In July 2025, TerrAscend closed a $79 million non-dilutive debt deal. The multistate cannabis operator used $68 million to retire existing indebtedness, with the remainder designated for future growth initiatives. An additional $35 million uncommitted facility became available for M&A.

The loan carries a 12.75% interest rate and matures in August 2028. No prepayment penalties. No warrants issued.

12.75% isn't cheap. But the alternative calculation looks like this:

Cannabis companies face over $6 billion in debt maturing by end-2026. Operators with debt coming due in 2026 have three options:

1. Refinance now at 12-13% and push maturities to 2028

2. Wait and hope for better rates closer to maturity

3. Default

Option 2 assumes capital will be available and cheaper in 12-18 months. But if the industry faces a liquidity crunch in 2026 as $6 billion comes due simultaneously, refinancing options disappear. 

Rates could spike higher. Or credit could freeze entirely.

The strategic calculation: pay 12.75% today and eliminate default risk, or gamble that future capital will be both available and cheaper.

TerrAscend paid the premium for certainty. They bought three years of operational runway to grow revenue, improve margins, and refinance later from a position of strength rather than desperation.

The Opportunity Cost Ledger

The engine supplier's decision illustrates a different calculation. With $400,000 in outstanding invoices on net-60 terms, they faced a choice:

Option A: Wait two months for full payment. Cost: $0 in financing fees. 

Opportunity cost - turning down new orders because working capital is tied up, potential damage to Fortune 500 relationship if they can't maintain supply consistency.

Option B: Advance 50% immediately at 1.5% fee. Cost: $6,000 and maintain production schedule, accept new orders, strengthen customer relationship, keep team utilized.

The $6,000 fee looks expensive until compared to the revenue lost by turning down orders for two months. Even one declined $50,000 order would cost more than the financing fee on $400,000 in receivables.

This is the speed premium in frontier industries. 

The cost isn't measured against bank rates. It's measured against lost momentum, missed opportunities, and business failure.

The Competitive Advantage

Traditional banks optimize their underwriting for commoditized assets and mainstream industries. 

That optimization creates scale and low costs, but it also creates exclusion. Cannabis, psychedelics, staffing with high client concentration, suppliers with slow-pay customers - all fall outside the optimization.

Alternative lenders built expertise where banks see only risk.

When a lender funds a cannabis operator in 72 hours, they're not skipping due diligence. 

They're applying cultivation-specific underwriting models banks don't have. When they advance against staffing receivables for a new agency, they're pricing client creditworthiness and contractor turnover risk using data sets banks never built.

This creates an asymmetric advantage for frontier operators.

Speed becomes a strategic lever. Tradecraft Farms didn't just get capital - they got capital fast enough to complete expansion before peak demand. The timing mattered as much as the dollars. That 72-hour difference meant capturing revenue that waiting would have forfeited.

Exclusion becomes expertise. The engine supplier's Fortune 500 customer pays reliably, but traditional banks won't finance receivables from companies they don't understand. Alternative lenders underwrote the buyer's creditworthiness directly. 

The supplier's "high-risk" status became irrelevant because the lender focused on the asset quality.

In frontier industries, speed isn't expensive. Delay is.

Banks optimize for cost. Alternative lenders optimize for timing and expertise.

When timing determines outcomes - the fastest capital is always the best capital.

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