Cassian Elwes Launches Emergency Bridge Financing Entity

Cassian Elwes is a busy guy. Just a couple of weeks ago we reported that he had partnered with Franklin Leonard and the Black List to form an independent screenwriting fellowship, and today it was announced that he has teamed with Robert Ogden Barnum at e2b Capital (the company he cofounded in May) and Buddy Patrick at Windy Hill Pictures to form Lifeboat Capital, which will provide bridge financing to indie filmmakers.

Their plan is to make loans of between $1 million and $5 million to 15-20 films. Bridge funding comes into play when indie films suddenly lose a backer or need to begin production while simultaneously settling loans and completion bonds. It's considered a high risk business, but between Elwes, Patrick and Barnum, they've financed or helped fund more than 200 films; they can mitigate the risks for sure and will use a combination of private equity, commercial banks and institutional lenders.

Indie financing is a tricky, piece-by-piece process. See Cassian deconstruct the overall process for ScreenCraft.