Paris: what is the “investment fund dedicated to the social and solidarity economy”?
The City of Paris, Crédit Coopératif and Paris Initiative Entreprise launched this Tuesday, May 24, an “investment fund dedicated to financing the social and solidarity economy”.
This is a first for a local community. The City of Paris launched this Tuesday, May 24 the very first Parisian investment fund. Through this new financial tool, it intends to “help companies in the social and solidarity economy (ESS)”, “promote” their work and “thus respond to real societal needs”, namely “the relocation of our savings and our investments”, underlined Florentin Letissier.
For more than 20 years, the City has worked with @pie_paris to grow the#ESS a @Paris.
Today, we present “Paris Fonds ESS”, the first Parisian investment fund dedicated to the social economy.
Explanations [1/10] pic.twitter.com/UHgryH8yp2
— Florentin Letissier (@f_letissier) May 24, 2022
First push
But for the deputy mayor of Paris in charge of the social and solidarity economy and the circular economy, “it is not enough to talk about it, we must also put the means behind”. He notes indeed “a hole in the racket”, when the companies of the SSE are not “still large enough to raise funds between the experimental phase and the development phase”.
With this investment fund, “the idea” is therefore to act as “business angels”, with “tickets of less than 100,000 euros”. Kinds of first fundraisers. “It makes sense because we have seen that the economic fabric of the SSE is extremely dynamic. We have plenty to do”, underlines the one who is elected in the 14th arrondissement of Paris.
At its side, Paris Initiative Entreprise will be responsible for managing the investment fund via a management company, of which the City of Paris and the various investors will be the guarantors. Because if the City of Paris “is not a decision-maker”, it will sit “on the supervisory board, in order to verify that the fund finances many actors involved in the SSE”, promises Florentin Letissier.
The first investments for early 2023
This fund – supplemented with 890,000 euros by the City of Paris and 500,000 euros by Crédit coopératif – is launched today, with the first objective of making itself known, then the second of reaching 10 million euros before the end of the year. “Other subscriptions are already under discussion”, we are assured, promising the “first investments for the beginning of 2023”.
Who is the fund for? To “small players” who traditionally approach the City of Paris for subsidies of 10,000 to 20,000 euros, who benefit from zero-interest loans, but who offer insufficient support. “Structures too small to have the support of capital from large players or large investment funds”, notes the deputy, whose “objective is to support this change of scale”.
And claim to become the “first brick that should help these to grow”, whose projects related to the circular economy of recycling, repair or reuse will help promote the SSE in Paris.
Very concrete ambition, according to Florentin Letissier: to make Paris “the capital of fashion and sustainable textiles”, with products “Made in Paris […] very well recycled or upcycled” coming from actors “who do not multiply the collections every two months sold at ridiculous prices”. “For that, we need a financial tool,” he concludes.