What is customer acquisition financing, and what does it really cost a founder?

Some of the biggest recent rounds are not all equity. In September 2026, Heidi, the Melbourne AI medical scribe, announced US$340 million. Only US$100 million was a Series C equity round led by Blackbird. The other US$240 million came from General Catalyst's Customer Value Fund, a product that pays for sales and marketing and is repaid out of the revenue that spend produces.

If you are a founder weighing something similar, here is how the structure works and what to check.

What it is

Customer acquisition financing, sometimes called customer value financing, advances cash against your sales and marketing budget. The lender is repaid from the revenue of the customers that spend brings in, not from a fixed monthly schedule. General Catalyst describes its version this way: it pre-funds the budget, is entitled only to the customer value created by that spend, and the entitlement is capped. After the cap is reached, the remaining value of those customers belongs to the company.

It takes no shares. That is the appeal: you fund growth without selling more of the company.

What it is not

It is not free money, and it is not equity. Reporting on a comparable General Catalyst deal says the repayment is based on revenue from the financed customers multiplied by a fixed margin assumption, not your real margins. If your actual margins come in lower than the assumed figure, the effective cost goes up, because the formula does not adjust.

It also only pays for sales and marketing. It will not cover payroll for engineers, a bad quarter or a lawsuit.

Who it fits

Providers generally want a business that has already found product-market fit, with customer payback you can measure. Heidi's annual recurring revenue reached US$50 million in April 2026, up from US$1 million two years earlier. That is a very different starting point from a company at US$1 million of ARR with unproven channels.

What to check before you sign

• The cap. What is the total the provider can collect on each cohort of customers, and how is it calculated?
• The margin assumption. Is it fixed, and how does it compare with your real gross margin?
• Attribution. How does the provider decide which customers the financed spend brought in?
• The downside. If a cohort underperforms, who bears the loss? In the General Catalyst model described publicly, the fund takes the shortfall on that cohort.
• What the next investor or buyer sees. One company that used a similar facility books it as a financial liability, with the return recorded as interest expense. A buyer will treat it as a claim on future revenue when they build the price.

What happened next at Heidi

Weeks after the raise, Heidi announced it would cut about 108 roles, 18 percent of staff, while two of its three co-founders said they were leaving. The company called it rebalancing around the markets and investments that will deliver the greatest impact. The reports do not say the financing caused the cuts, and we should not infer that. They do show that a large raise, including non-dilutive money, does not remove the need to run the company to a plan.

The founder's rule

Treat acquisition financing as a way to buy customers you already know how to buy. If you cannot say what a customer costs and what that customer pays back, you are not ready for it. If you can, compare its all-in cost against the dilution of the equity round you would raise instead.

This is general information, not legal or financial advice. Have your counsel and finance lead read the term sheet.

Sources: Heidi funding announcement and coverage, September 22, 2026 (MobiHealthNews, Forbes Australia, TNW); Sydney Morning Herald, November 5, 2026; General Catalyst, "The Unbundling of Growth Equity."

Related reading: Revenue-based financing vs venture debt vs equity: which should a SaaS founder choose?; What is venture debt and when should a founder use it; What is a down round and how does it affect founders; What is a quality of earnings report and why does every buyer require one.