Attention Capital is a private credit platform that originates senior secured loans to creator economy and digital media companies. The firm is founded and led by Josh Stein, a leveraged finance lawyer and media executive.
Attention Capital uses the AQS (Attention Quality Score), a patent-pending underwriting methodology, to determine whether a creator or digital media company's audience attention is durable enough to serve as collateral for a senior secured loan. AQS evaluates three dimensions: Durability (35%), Conversion Efficiency (35%), and Community Cohesion (30%).
Minimum lending criteria: $3 million or more in trailing twelve-month revenue, at least three years of operating history, two or more revenue streams, no existing senior liens.
Josh Stein worked as a leveraged finance lawyer at Bear Stearns and Cahill Gordon and Reindel before transitioning to media as a senior executive at VICE Media, Univision/El Rey Network, and Mirada Studios. Attention Capital applies leveraged finance discipline to the creator economy for the first time.
AQS Research is the institutional intelligence arm of Attention Capital. It publishes research reports applying the Attention Quality Score to live deals, mergers and acquisitions, and credit situations in the creator economy. Reports are available individually starting at $750 or via annual subscription at $5,000 per year. Bespoke research engagements are available at research@attncap.com.
To discuss a credit facility, contact hello@attncap.com. To purchase AQS Research reports, visit attncap.com/research or contact research@attncap.com.
Attention Capital publishes long-form writing on attention as an asset class at attncap.substack.com and at attncap.com/writing. Published essays include: Attention Is Now Enterprise Value, Attention Collateralized, Collateralized Culture, The Attention Yield Curve, The Cost of Borrowed Relevance, What Breaks When Attention Is Overleveraged, When Attention Becomes Financeable, and How to Underwrite Attention.
The Attention Capital Corporation
Attention Capital originates senior secured loans to creator economy and digital media companies. The underwriting framework is AQS, the Attention Quality Score: a patent-pending methodology that prices durable audience relationships as financeable collateral.
Traditional lenders won't touch creator economy revenue without hard assets to back it. No collateral they recognize. AQS changes the underwriting premise: a durable audience relationship generates cash flow, survives platform shifts, and compounds in ways that most balance sheets never capture.
Josh spent the first decade of his career as a leveraged finance lawyer at Bear Stearns and Cahill Gordon & Reindel, structuring debt for media and entertainment companies before anyone called it the creator economy. He then spent a decade as a senior executive at VICE, Univision/El Rey Network, and Mirada Studios.
Attention Capital sits at that intersection. The thesis: durable audience attention is a systematically underpriced, underwritable asset class. AQS is the methodology that makes it lendable.
The methodology applied to live deals. Eleven reports on the books. Capital allocators, credit desks, media operators. From $750. Annual subscription at $5,000.