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0 pointsjszymborski1y ago0 comments

I'm not a finance person, but my understanding is that co-ops more often raise capital with traditional loans.

While I believe you are correct that co-ops are not a great fit for the growth business strategy that VCs make their bread and butter on, I believe that on many metrics co-ops tend to be more sustainable than the corporate alternatives[0]. This means they are more likely to be around tomorrow to pay off a loan.

All this to say, it would be great to see more capital for co-ops in the form of traditional loans with favourable interest rates.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/social-enterprise-network/2014/m...

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cies1y ago· 2 in thread

> All this to say, it would be great to see more capital for co-ops in the form of traditional loans with favourable interest rates.

Sure, that would be great. But what can govt do today to incentivize that?

I'd say just relax (tax) law on w-coops to incentivize them compared to the less favorable forms of incorporation.

jszymborskiOP1y ago

Especially in Canada, where capital is tight and productivity is low, I think incentivizing co-ops is a great idea.

The Canadian gov't offers some grants for co-ops, but they are a pittance. Making debt cheaper for co-ops relative to corps (maybe via additional tax breaks on interest?) is, I think super important.

Gaessaki1y ago

Quebec probably has the single best cooperative financing ecosystem in the world (1B+$). There’s a need for more risk-driven investment instruments in the sector however to seed early stage ventures. Most of the funds end up getting reinvested in existing cooperatives who can already access traditional funding.

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