#37 GKC | First Exit + Reflection 🎉

💭💭 GOOD Insights

Meet LingoTalk, an Indonesian-based EdTech providing engaging English-learning classes for individuals & enterprises.

Six months ago, I met Andre, CEO of LingoTalk and we talked about his struggles.

On paper, the company was profitable. But, payment delays from existing clients has dragged their cash flow where they struggled to pay salary on-time.

Funny enough, their clients are the big names & state-owned enterprises.

A typical SME / early-stage business problem - CASH FLOW!

I decided to support LingoTalk with impact-first debt financing.

A total of US$50,000 investment for 6 months, by myself and two angel investors.

Now, here’s their remarkable achievements in 2024!

• 3x revenue growth YoY

• 1.5x profit margin growth YoY

• hired a new CTO to build AI technology

• >5,000 young professionals benefited from the programs

• closing a larger fundraising round of $500k

With a US$50k investment, we helped LingoTalk to grow their business + impacted more beneficiaries + unlock 10x impact capital in 6 months!

A successful case study of impact-first debt financing in Southeast Asia.

Why I Love Impact-First Debt Financing?

The perfect match of funding for profitable impact companies & aspiring impact investors.

For early-stage impact companies, they struggle with:

• finding suitable funding options (doesn’t fit VC power law / too risky for banks / insufficient grants)

• fighting against time (contracts don’t wait!)

• don’t want to dilute more equity for working capital

For impact investors, they struggle with:

• don’t see sufficient returns (failure rate too high, DPIs too low!)

• don’t want to wait for 7-10 years to see returns (case for impact VCs)

This is nothing revolutionary, tbh.

Invoice & working capital financing exist for the longest time.

But, what’s different for the impact world?

Reasonable interest rate.

Money-driven investors aim for the highest interest rate, while true impact investors aim for suitable interest rate.

At Good Karma Club, we do a fixed 13% interest rate per annum and donate 1% to pay it forward.

I charge a 2% management fee. So, all my investors get a nett 10% interest gain per annum.

And, they are perfectly fine with the 10%, paid monthly into their bank accounts.

6 Deals In 6 Months

My philosophy is simple.

I want to unlock the cash flow problems of impact companies, empowering them to create bigger impacts!

My goal?

10 deals a year, with avg. ticket of US$ 100k per deal, donating US$10k every year.

More to come :)

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If you’re interested to learn more about impact-first debt financing, happy to have a chat (LinkedIn or email).

❤️ Great Content You’ll Like …

FREE Databases
Fellowships | Accelerators | Competitions | Fundraising Cases

Deep Dives
Climate | Education | Financial Inclusion | Healthcare | Agriculture | Gender Equality

Impact Frameworks
Impact Investing 101 | IRIS+ | SROI | B Corp | UN SDGs | OPIM

👍 How I Can Help

Whenever you’re ready, here’s how I can be helpful:

GKC Invest
Join our invite-only, impact-first investor club focusing on private credit deals in SEA.

10 deals a year // 6 - 12 months loan // 10% interest payback // min. US$ 5k per deal

Fractional CFO
Support on monthly financial reporting, capital strategy and fundraising advisory.

SEA Impact Program
Curate impact-focused programs for corporates (i.e. accelerators, deal flows)

Let’s chat on LinkedIn / email!