I think First Funds did them first, but were too ahead of their time. Then it was indeed either Pearl or YS, but years later. It was considered insane but it disrupted the whole industry. While you were sitting there waiting 2 weeks for your merchant's POS system to be switched over, they could come in and fund basically same day without switching anything over. It became impossible to compete against. Who are you going to go with? The guy messing with your credit card machine that's going to take a week or more, cause early termination fees, and create unknowns for your business OR the guy telling you he'll fund you today, same amount, same cost, no switching anything.