One Year, Five Top-Ups: How a Dubai D2C Brand Used KCTL to 10× Revenue

Company Snapshot

Sector: Home fragrance
Founded: 2022
Start GMV: AED 120 K/month
Gross Margin: 55 %
Sales Channels: Shopify + noon

Round-by-Round Timeline

Month	Advance	Fee	Use of Funds	GMV after 60 days
0	200 K	30 K	Ramadan inventory	300 K
3	300 K	42 K	TikTok & IG ads	550 K
6	500 K	75 K	Hire 4 fulfilment staff	800 K
9	800 K	120 K	Launch KSA warehouse	1.4 M
12	1.2 M	180 K	Private-label raw materials	1.8 M

Cash-Flow Analytics

• Peak repayment share hit: AED 18 K/day for 10 days of White Friday, then normalised.
• Lowest repayment day: AED 3 K during mid-summer lull (sales dipped, buffer kicked in).
• Average tenure per line: 4.7 months.

Break-Even vs. Profit

The brand never fell below cash zero because each advance funded positive-ROI assets before repayment ramped. Overall effective APR: 17.8 %, but ROI on capital deployed: 112 %.

Founder Quotes

“Traditional banks offered us 9 % plus collateral—tied up our villa. KCTL cost more on paper, but speed meant we earned five times the fee before the first bank meeting would’ve finished.”

Lessons Learned

1. Data transparency = faster, bigger top-ups.
2. Inventory + marketing is a virtuous loop.
3. Keep buffer cash; variable repayments soften dips but don’t erase them.
4. Hybrid debt-equity—they finally raised a seed round at 6× the valuation of pre-KCTL days.

Conclusion

Strategic, staged RBF can out-pace equity dilution and build leverage for a premium VC round.

CTA: Ready to map your own multi-top-up path? Start with a quick eligibility check.