What is the name of your organization?
LendForGood Pty Ltd
What is the name of your solution?
LendForGood
Provide a one-line summary or tagline for your solution.
LendForGood is a global impact loan syndication platform mobilising millions in impact finance for the UN Sustainable Development Goals
In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?
Melbourne VIC, Australia
In what country is your solution team headquartered?
AUS
What type of organization is your solution team?
For-profit, including B-Corp or similar models
Film your elevator pitch.
What specific problem are you solving?
We urgently need to finance impact small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to drive growth and development. The US$5 trillion per annum ‘missing middle’ in global impact SME financing presents a huge challenge to achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals. In all countries, SMEs are the engine room for impact, innovation and growth. While in many markets, programs for starting businesses are prevalent, and later stage equity and bank finance is well developed, the lack of available capital to bridge this gap leads to many impact SMEs either not delivering on their potential or failing.
What is your solution?
LendForGood solves the missing middle through a unique syndication model. We harness the work of intermediary organisations (such as accelerators, incubators, venture studios, entrepreneur support organisations, and angel networks) who support the creation and growth of impact enterprises. These intermediary organisations become syndicate leads - using our platform to tell the story of the borrower they are working with, share commercial information, pitch loan terms, and how they will support the borrowing enterprise to be successful. Crucially, borrowers co-design their loan terms to ensure they get the right capital on the right terms to succeed.
From there, we use the dynamics of crowdfunding and the tools of debt syndication, to enable our existing (and growing) lender community to lend their support to the borrower alongside the borrower and intermediaries community of supporters. LendForGood manages contracting, movement of funds and information between borrower and lenders in both directions, deferrals, defaults and all other aspects relating to the loan - enabling borrowers with the support of their intermediaries to focus on achieving impact and commercial objectives.
Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?
Our primary paying customers are intermediary organisations (such as accelerators, incubators, venture studios, entrepreneur support organisations, and angel networks) who support the creation and growth of impact enterprises around the world. What they and the impact enterprises they work with lack is access to capital, due to the global missing middle in impact finance. That is the problem we help solve by providing an impact debt syndication platform essentially as a SAAS product.
Through these intermediaries, we serve courageous impact enterprise borrowers throughout the world who are delivering solutions in communities and helping to achieve the SDGs. Indirectly, LendForGood helps improve the lives of 1000s of people, from team members earning livelihoods in the borrowing organisations, to young children consuming products that help them overcome malnutrition (for example). The more loans we syndicate, the more lives are positively impacted.
We also offer a solution to every day people who want to lend their support to impact enterprises, providing a way for them to be impact investors. We democratise impact investment, grow community wealth, and enable people to invest in things that matter to them. At a systems level, we help rebuild and preserve Main Street over Wall Street.