Montreuil, 30 october 2019

Very few business support organisations operate in seed stage, although it is a key period in business creation. It is even more relevant for entrepreneurs who are primarily focused on having a strong social impact in society. To succeed, fundraising is a fundamental step when starting a company. This is where France Active comes in.

Number 1 social funder in France and pioneer in the field of support services to social enterprises, France Active supports entrepreneurs at all stages of their company’s life: from seed stage to scale-up. As seed stage is a difficult phase, France Active launches a dedicated program that has been awarded the “French Impact” label (initiative of the French government). With the support of France Active’s partners and the shareholders of its investment company, it will enable new entrepreneurs to start out and to offer concrete solutions to tackle current social and environmental challenges.

France Active is strengthening its action towards social enterprises and developing funding, coaching and networking services for social entrepreneurs in seed stage. This will be even more possible thanks to the European Commission support, as France Active’s answer to the call for proposals “EaSI – Transaction cost support for social enterprise finance market” has been selected. Along with capacity building of 10 local advisers, those additional means will be entirely dedicated to seed stage support. It will thus enable to fill a gap in the social enterprise finance market by providing innovative social enterprises with appropriate equity funding (between 20K€ and 100K€) as well as personalised coaching and networking services. This 2-year project aims at supporting 100 social enterprises in the territories concerned.