WASHINGTON _ The good news for Miami entrepreneurs Mariana Cortez and husband Sebastian Ghiragossian was that Whole Foods wanted to sell their popular vegan cupcakes in local stores _ a highly-sought measure of success for any small-scale food producer.
Then an electrical problem threw a needed expansion of their Bunnie Cakes bakery six months behind schedule and wrecked the project's budget. The couple turned to two online companies that promised them all the cash they needed in a matter of days.
That speed came at a cost. They received $133,000 and were on the hook for paying back a total of $193,000 _ roughly one-and-a-half times what they had taken out. And the companies providing the funding, Can Capital and Yellowstone Capital, were given direct access to Bunnie Cakes' bank account; they sucked out a portion of the bakery's receipts each day until the full amount was repaid _ in a matter of months, not years.
