Entrepreneurs for the benefit of regions
Support impact-driven entrepreneurship, in France and abroad
Groupe SOS believes in the emergence of a new form of entrepreneurship that is more humane, more caring, and more efficient: ambitious but realistic, committed to creating wealth benefiting everyone, including the most excluded. This impact-driven entrepreneurship however needs to be open to all and those embarking on this journey need to be given all the keys to succeed.
That is why our organisations are working to bring about positive change everywhere, and to serve as springboards for the innovative project initiators that commit to a more caring, more inclusive, and more sustainable society.
International Action
All over the world, particularly in developing countries, Groupe SOS is creating the conditions to encourage the emergence of citizen and entrepreneurial ecosystems through support programmes and awareness-raising initiatives targeting civil society.
Several of our organisations are active in developing countries, with business incubation centres, as well as off-site digital courses. The purpose of these initiatives is to promote education, financial inclusion, and entrepreneurship.
People Power Inclusion
PPI – People Power Inclusion is involved in the construction and management of programmes aimed at preventing the social and economic resilience of populations excluded from the traditional channels of education and employment. PPI focuses on young people and women living in priority countries for official development assistance. This international NGO calls on experts to develop the economic autonomy of the most vulnerable populations, by working in three areas: Education and financial inclusion, entrepreneurship, and inclusive value chains.
PULSE, a network of impact incubators
PULSE was founded on the conviction that everyone can become a force for change through entrepreneurship. Since 2006, its mission has been to drive positive change across the globe and act as a springboard for entrepreneurs who, like us, are committed to building a more caring, inclusive, and sustainable society. The organisation is active in incubation centres in Africa and Europe, as well as remote digital and itinerant programmes.
Encouraging entrepreneurial diversity
It is time to put the will to make a difference and the determination to succeed at the heart of the entrepreneurial equation. Society hosts a great deal of hidden talents, some of whom are the people closest to its actual needs, just waiting for support to become a contribution to their community.
That is why we need to put an end to inequalities in access to entrepreneurship. Our mission is to help new voices and new players emerge among those who are furthest removed from this ecosystem.
Creatis, facilitate access to the digital and media world
Creatis has helped dozens of young businesses in a wide range of cultural fields: media, film, music, architecture, video games, fashion, arts and crafts, design, press, radio, heritage, live performance, etc. The scheme aims to support and accelerate the development of cultural industries start-ups that combine excellence and meaning-making, by offering them a hosting solution, integration into a cultural ecosystem, customised expert support and easier access to funding. Creatis is also a tool for innovation for cultural institutions and regional economic development. Among other things, it has launched initiatives to facilitate women’s access to entrepreneurship, such as the Source programme.
The Odyssée project, removing the barriers to the integration of women
Odyssée is a back-to-work project designed to encourage, remove barriers and help 350 people back into employment, including 175 low-skilled women from 3 priority neighbourhoods in the Aix-Marseille-Provence metropolitan area, who are a long way from employment and have difficulty being helped by the existing work integration schemes.
Germinal
Germinal is an EITI (integration through independent activity company) for self-employed people on work integration programmes. Funding, business development, environmental impact, training, networking… Entrepreneurial and social assistance enables people previously distant from employment to move ahead with confidence from the very first months of their business activity, and to develop lasting results.
H7, digital technology at the service of society
H7 is the digital innovation hub in Lyon. A flagship of the French Tech movement, it is housed in a 5,000 m² former boiler making factory and includes 350 workstations and an events hall. H7 brings together the existing start-up accelerators of the Lyon area, which will assist around one hundred start-ups for a period of 12 to 18 months. H7’s purpose is to promote accessible, sustainable, inclusive entrepreneurship. At the heart of the community are individuals and structures with different expertise, life paths and challenges: entrepreneurs, companies, experts, investment funds, schools… forming a community of over 900 members.
Financially supporting high-impact projects
Groupe SOS Participations
Groupe SOS Participations invests to develop synergies between external players. This includes:
- Datagora, a Civic Tech start-up providing a critical thinking education to the media, aggregating reliable, recent data of interest to the public debate and combating fake news.
- Fermcoop, a cooperative creating agroecological farms that respect nature and people and provide organic sustainable food.
- HinLab, a Health Tech start-up that creates vital parameter monitoring products that enable healthcare facilities to provide low cost high-quality, patient-centred care.
- LifeCircle, one of India’s leading home healthcare services platforms for the elderly.
- TETU, the iconic media brand for LGBTIQ+ news.
Impact Business Angels
Impact Business Angels was launched in December 2021 in response to a double need. On the one hand, there is a shortfall of nearly €100m in funding per year for impact start-ups, and on the other hand, the involvement of French business angels in impact projects is often blocked for a number of reasons: essentially a lack of expertise, a lack of co-investors, a lack of access to pre-qualified investment opportunities and a lack of impact-driven communities.
As the first network exclusively dedicated to supporting impact entrepreneurship in France, Impact Business Angels targets impact-driven projects in the pre-seed and seed phases, targeting fund-raising from €200k to €2m for investment tickets of between €30k and €300k.
After only 6 months, the network has almost 45 members and is making its first investments in the circular economy, agroecology, and silver economy sectors.
Blue Bees
BlueBees is a company from the new world, a world aware that the No. 1 challenge is to save the biosphere, and that we need to put the values of cooperation, solidarity, sharing and sobriety (as nature does!) at the heart of our economic models.
BlueBees is a crowdfunding platform designed to promote and facilitate the implementation of projects that work towards sustainable agriculture and food production, i.e., projects that are organic, economically viable, a source of jobs and social cohesion at the local level. We have recently extended our scope to include entrepreneurial projects that revivify deserted rural areas.
PPI Fund
PPI – People Power Inclusion has made the financing of micro-businesses one of the levers for developing the social and economic resilience of the most vulnerable populations in many countries. PPI is now active in more than 20 countries in Africa and the Middle East. The majority of the 2 million direct beneficiaries of its programmes is composed of women and youths, as they are most exposed to educational and economic insecurity.
Accelerating the shift towards positive impact investment
Impact Source
The amount of capital injected to finance the social and ecological transition is constantly growing, with the emergence of new ‘doctrines’ such as solidarity finance, ethical finance, and impact investment. However, with the number of impact funds constantly on the rise, the risk of “impact washing” has never been higher. Therefore, Groupe SOS has joined forces with the Magellim asset management group to create Impact Source, the reference for high-impact funds of funds in France and Europe. Based on the expertise of Groupe SOS, this fund of investment funds has developed a unique framework for assessing the relevance of different impact investment strategies.
The Impact Source fund of funds, classified as SFDR 9 – the highest level in European Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation in place since 2021, was also launched with the ambition of establishing objective impact criteria and reporting reliable, sector-specific data. This is fully aligned with the strategy of Groupe SOS, which seeks to drive systemic change.