(858) 880-0252 [email protected]
Mission Driven Finance announces first $1M in impact investments

Mission Driven Finance announces first $1M in impact investments

San Diego startup led by proven industry leaders is making strides to $10M goal

SAN DIEGO, CA—January 31, 2018—Mission Driven Finance today announced that Lucky Bolt, a local food kitchen and healthy meal delivery company, All Across Africa, a fair trade home goods wholesaler, and Thrive Public Schools are the first beneficiaries of their fund’s inaugural loans totaling $1.1 million.

Mission Driven Finance was founded in 2016 by a seasoned team of San Diego finance and philanthropic leaders to tap into a growing trend of investors looking to drive financial returns and effect positive social change. The group’s initial “impact investments” are commercial loans that provide local community-minded borrowers access to critical capital up to $500,000 at rates that encourage success.

“Communities are stronger when local businesses grow and thrive, yet many high-quality businesses end up stuck without access to affordable capital,” said Mission Driven Finance CEO David Lynn. “Our blend of financing opportunities and technical assistance allows us to invest in great businesses that are advancing economic opportunity for their employees and their community—without relying on personal credit scores and guarantees like many other lenders.”

Mission Driven Finance uses a social finance ideology to make commercial loans to tenacious nonprofit and small business borrowers, moving much-needed capital to local businesses while delivering meaningful social and financial returns to investors. Their first fund is focused specifically on the San Diego region.

“We often say that being socially conscious and business savvy do not have to be mutually exclusive,” said All Across Africa Chief Operating Officer Alicia Wallace. “In Mission Driven Finance, we’ve found a kindred spirit and business partner who can support our commitment to improving the lives of thousands of women in Africa and hiring more people at our National City headquarters.”

“It’s incredible to have a finance partner in town that is so deeply committed to equitable access to capital, the lack of which has historically hurt small businesses, and ultimately harmed job creation in the local economy,” said Karim Bouris, Executive Director of Business for Good San Diego, a nonprofit organization with a mission to unite small business owners to drive policy that improves our community.

In addition to Lynn, the Mission Driven Finance leadership team includes Chief Investment Officer Louie Nguyen, CFA, Chief Operating Officer Shreya S. Sasaki, director of investor relations Heather Marie Burke, and director of community engagement Lauren Grattan. Each comes to the organization with deep experience and ties to the San Diego impact and philanthropic communities. Mission Driven Finance is built on a core of community partnership, including with noteworthy agencies like CDC Small Business Finance.

While Mission Driven Finance has made significant progress toward their 2018 goal of raising and deploying their flagship $10 million commercial loan fund, Lynn hopes more investors and donors will realize the amazing opportunities we have to invest in our own backyard.

###

About the borrowers

All Across Africa is a home goods wholesaler with a unique supply chain model training and employing over 3,000 artisans in five countries in Africa, primarily women.  A certified B-Corporation headquartered in San Diego, they are investing in expansion to support growing sales demand. Mission Driven Finance led a $600,000 financing round alongside other impact investors with a $350,000 loan.

LuckyBolt is a mission-driven company making it easy and affordable to maintain a healthy diet and support local, regenerative agriculture. Their award-winning delivery platform enables busy individuals to get fresh meals at work without having to pay delivery fees. The LuckyBolt team is rethinking food distribution entirely, addressing deep-seeded inefficiencies in the food supply chain to make high-quality food accessible to everyone and create meaningful career opportunities for individuals with barriers to employment, including transitioning military veterans. The $250,000 loan from Mission Driven Finance enables LuckyBolt to expand from a shared commissary kitchen to their own commercial kitchen and storefront.

Thrive Public Schools is a group of free, nationally recognized K-12 public schools in San Diego that prepares kids for careers and college in a safe, diverse, and joyful environment. Thrive achieves award-winning academic growth by focusing on a highly personalized learning environment with quality faculty and staff, who deeply care about each Thrive student. Thrive’s $500,000 bridge loan from Mission Driven Finance allows them to maintain a high caliber of personalized learning experiences for a growing student body in advance of tuition reimbursements from the State of California.

About Mission Driven Finance

Mission Driven Finance empowers community through new models of investing in social change. Through our commercial loan fund, advisory services, and hands-on technical assistance, Mission Driven Finance mobilizes capital to advance economic opportunity. Learn more about our community-centered approach to finance and discover how easy it is to invest in San Diego. Follow @MDFinanceSD.

Borrower Spotlight: LuckyBolt

Borrower Spotlight: LuckyBolt

The LuckyBolt story

Kris Schlesser started LuckyBolt in 2011 after his own frustration trying to get good food on a short lunch break. LuckyBolt started with bulk delivery agreements with local restaurants and expanded into offering healthy meals from the LuckyBolt Kitchen. Their model of delivering a large number of lunches to high-density office areas provides them better margins than many competitors, while their focus on healthy, locally-sourced meals with options for a variety of dietary restrictions truly sets them apart.

Kris and his team are committed to a better connected local food system and are spearheading an initiative with Community Health Improvement Partners (CHIP) to build a purchasing and distribution hub for produce from small local farms. This hub connecting local agriculture with restaurants, caterers, and other wholesale customers will grow the livelihoods of community farmers and provide fresh, high-quality ingredients to a wider audience.

The $250,000 loan from Mission Driven Finance enables LuckyBolt to expand from a shared commissary kitchen to their own commercial kitchen and storefront. The cost savings and increased sales from their new space allow them to hire more full-time employees. They commit to hiring veterans and graduates of Kitchens For Good’s culinary apprenticeship program for a large portion of their team.

About LuckyBolt

LuckyBolt is a mission-driven company making it easy and affordable to maintain a healthy diet and support local, regenerative agriculture. Their award-winning delivery platform enables busy individuals to get fresh meals at work without having to pay delivery fees. The LuckyBolt team is rethinking food distribution entirely, addressing deep-seeded inefficiencies in the food supply chain to make high-quality food accessible to everyone and create meaningful career opportunities for individuals with barriers to employment, including transitioning military veterans.


Creating economic opportunity through:

workforce development & skills training, quality jobs, market development, engaged community

Borrower Spotlight: All Across Africa

Borrower Spotlight: All Across Africa

All Across Africa artisan

All Across Africa’s mission is to create jobs and markets to alleviate poverty in Africa.

All Across Africa (AAA) is a social enterprise accelerating artisan integration into the global economy by facilitating access to foreign markets.

AAA’s unique supply chain model includes training and employing over 3,000 artisans in five countries in Africa, primarily women. A certified B-Corporation headquartered in San Diego, they are investing in expansion to support growing sales demand. Mission Driven Finance led a $600,000 financing round alongside other impact investors with a $350,000 loan. With this investment, AAA will be able to scale their domestic sales team to build out channels to sell their ethically made products.

Learn more about their incredible ripple effects on communities in Africa through the Santa Clara University Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship impact report.

Buy home goods and jewelry directly from AAA’s retail channel kazigoods.com

Borrower Spotlight: Thrive Public Schools

Thrive Public Schools is a group of free, nationally recognized K–12 public schools in San Diego. Thrive prepares kids for careers and college in a safe, diverse, and joyful environment. They achieve award-winning academic growth by focusing on a highly personalized learning environment with quality faculty and staff who deeply care about each student. Thrive’s $500,000 bridge loan from Mission Driven Finance allows them to maintain a high-caliber education for a growing student body in advance of tuition reimbursements from the State of California.

Exponential Growth at Thrive

With individually tailored plans and project-based learning, students who get lost in other education systems fall in love with learning and often regain their academic footing. As a result, parents from all over San Diego County (45 ZIP codes!) have been clamoring to send their kids to Thrive.

  • 2014–2015: 45 students enrolled in grades K–6
  • 2015–2016: 194 students enrolled in grades K–8
  • 2016–2017: 461 students enrolled in grades K–9
  • 2017–2018: 651 students enrolled in grades K–10

Thrive started modestly in a rented portable structure in City Heights but rapidly grew to three campuses. In 2017, they got to build a new elementary campus in Linda Vista in partnership with Bayside Community Center. This new building inspires everyone who visits and supports a variety of learning styles.

Thrive’s Approach to Education

Education hasn’t changed much in 100 years but kids change all the time.  That’s why THRIVE is breaking out of the box of traditional education by making sure every child has a joyful, personalized, and deeply engaging learning experience.

At THRIVE, teachers use technology to help every child reach their personal best.  Each student has their own personalized plan to ensure they expand their future and have access to college and careers.

At THRIVE, educators build a love of learning in their students by connecting what they learn in the classroom to the real world.  They learn through building, creating, designing, and exploring the world around them.

At THRIVE, every student is known, seen, and valued by their teachers and each other.  We work every day to foster deep connections and celebrate the amazing differences in our racially and economically diverse community.