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by emixam 1494 days ago
Happy to see this list here on which our coop startup appears! (https://kantree.io) It is very challenging to raise funds as a coop indeed but we have managed to do it on small amounts (a few hundreds of thousands). We are one of the few product based coop and not service based.

France (where we are based) is actually a very interesting market for coops. There is a very good legal framework around coops and a growing percentage of them. There's even an investment fund of tech coop as of recently! https://coopventure.fr/

I think coops are a great ownership model for the future and for a more responsible economy. It is too bad that there is still very little support and recognition around it.
2 comments
BrainInAJar 1494 days ago
Do these qualify for the French tech worker visa? Could someone who wants to move to France decide to just start a co-op ?
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emixam 1494 days ago
From what I understand, there is no limitation regarding the type of company when it comes to the French Tech Visa (as long as it qualifies on the other requirements which focus more on the innovation aspect). (my coop would be eligible for example)

Starting a coop is like starting any other kind of company so same rules apply. (You must be at least 2 people of course!)

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mtremsal 1494 days ago
Very interesting. Within France, would a tech coop typically be structured as a SCOP?
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emixam 1494 days ago
Not necessarily (the coop I work for is one though). There are 3 possible types of coops in France: SCOP, SCIC and CAE. To make it short:

- SCOP: adheres to the international definition of coops

- CAE: a coop of freelancers. You are an employee of the structure (with a work contract) but you have to bring in your own revenue to pay your salary. A percentage of your revenue goes towards the coop budget for shared services (accounting, hr, ...) and cash reserve

- SCIC: a multi-party coop. A good use case would be platforms where you could have multiple groups of stakeholders: employees of the platform, users and service providers. (eg. with a Uber like coop: employees, users and drivers could all be separate groups of owners). Each group has a voting percentage. No group can have more than 50% ownership.

I see great potential for the 2 other types of coops that France has in the context of tech. I do not know of any equivalent elsewhere (but would be happy to learn it exists!)

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