Capital Access Group Helps Video Game Developer to Secure $2.95M SBA 504 Loan to Purchase Commercial Condo in San Francisco’s Popular Hayes Valley

Capital Access Group (www.capitalaccess.com), a commercial real estate lender specializing in U.S. Small Business Administration 504 loans for growing businesses, recently helped Supergiant Games, LLC, to secure $2.95 million in total project financing through the SBA 504 commercial real estate loan program to purchase a 2,909-square-foot commercial condominium located at 521 Gough Street in the heart of Hayes Valley, San Francisco, a prime location for cutting-edge startups and businesses to set up shop amid the high-end boutiques and restaurants.

Founded in 2009, Supergiant Games has released three critically and commercially successful role-playing games, Bastion, Transistor, and Pyre.

“We are confident in our future as a company, and we decided that buying property would be a great investment for us,” said Michael Ailshie, Operations Manager, Supergiant Games, LLC. “Over the course of 2011 to 2018, we realized how much cash we were losing in rental costs. We have the cash flow, so we decided that this would be a great investment for us that would help alleviate those costs and help us plan for the future.”

From pipedream to reality, the purchasing decision was inspired by a conversation Supergiant had with a former landlord.

“We were putting feelers out, and we talked to another company that had secured funding through a 504 loan,” said Michael. “The 10 percent down payment kind of made our eyes go a little bit wide, and we wanted to learn more.”

“The security of the investment felt safer going through the SBA instead of a large bank, and our introductory conversations with Capital Access Group gave us a lot of confidence,” said Ailshie. “We were incredibly satisfied with how quickly they responded to all of our questions, how efficiently they helped us get all the proper documents together, and how frequently they were communicating with us on what was needed.”

“It was a lot of fun working with this young, energetic company,” said Claudia Cohen, SVP, Capital Access Group. “We were on an extremely short timeline, so we made sure to get all of the details and documents ready before they signed the contract to purchase. Michael and his team were incredibly responsive. It was a seamless, efficient partnership.”

“The location is amazing, with shops and restaurants in the area, convenient to public transportation, all that has made people’s lives a lot easier,” said Ailshie. “And now that we’re settling into this new office, we have peace of mind and security–it’s going to be a lot easier to keep our heads down and make video games. It’s starting to feel like our new home.”

The press release can be read online here.

Capital Access borrower Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese in the news

The full story can be read in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat here, or below:

The stainless steel vats arrived from the Netherlands, the computerized operating system was purchased from Canada, the air quality system came from France and the machine that foil wraps cheese wheels was made in Germany.

The components are key parts of a new $7.8 million production and distribution facility in Petaluma for Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese. Also crucial is the plant’s size. At over 20,000 square feet, the facility offers enough room for the family-owned business to quadruple its space for aging pasteurized cheeses.

The Giacomini family, the owner, has made a name in the last 18 years for producing an award-winning, non-pasteurized blue cheese at its farm on Tomales Bay. And with the recent completion of the Petaluma plant on Payran Street, the family is planning to double production in the next five years.

The growth is expected to be fueled largely by the sale of the company’s buttery, semi-hard Toma, which last year was named the best U.S. farmstead cheese by the American Cheese Society.

“Toma is going to pay for this plant,” said Lynn Giacomini Stray, one of three sisters who runs the business.

Petaluma has long been a processing and distribution center for milk produced on the sweeping grasslands of Sonoma and Marin counties. Before the existence of the Golden Gate Bridge, farmers brought their milk to Petaluma for shipment by boat along the Petaluma River and across San Francisco Bay.

The city remains a center for the local dairy sector, which today features artisan cheeses and other premium products. Petaluma hosts the headquarters of Clover Sonoma, the Bay Area’s largest milk processor, as well as the operations of Straus Family Creamery, Cowgirl Creamery, Petaluma Creamery and Three Twins Ice Cream.

Clover President and CEO Marcus Benedetti said such companies “benefit from an incredible milkshed,” a dairy production region akin to a watershed.

He called Point Reyes Farmstead a case study in how dairy farmers can improve their livelihoods by making artisanal products from their milk.

“It’s an incredible story of adding value to a commodity,” Benedetti said.

Point Reyes Farmstead produces over a million pounds of cheese a year from the milk of its 450 dairy cows. The company employs about 90 workers at its new plant and at the farm and culinary center near Point Reyes Station.

The family purchased the 720-acre farm in 1959. Robert (Bob) and Dean Giacomini ran the dairy and raised four daughters.

In 2000 the family made the leap to cheese making. The adult daughters, who had pursued different careers, all agreed to come back and help run the new business. They did so after a new wave of cheesemakers had come on the scene.

While a few producers like Marin French Cheese have long called the North Bay home, the new cheesemakers included Laura Chenel, Redwood Hill Farm and later Cowgirl Creamery. This new crop of producers proved willing guides for those seeking to join their ranks.

“It was a fortuitous time to jump into the industry,” said Diana Giacomini Hagan, Point Reyes Farmstead’s chief financial officer.

Today the North Bay includes over two dozen cheesemakers, among more than 900 such artisan or specialty producers in the U.S.