Cultivating the next generation of cooperative businesses at scale.
A new generation of entrepreneurs want to build transformative and scalable businesses that align with their values and which combat - rather than perpetuate - economic and race-based inequality. But how?
Co-ops: a robust and equitable ownership model and an alternative to traditional, winner-takes-all capitalism.
Cooperatively owned businesses are owned and controlled by the people who directly produce or use their products, supplies, or services. In this shared ownership structure, profits are shared with the people who directly support that business. Because of this, co-ops have the potential to unlock ownership and wealth generation for so many traditionally excluded individuals and communities.
We grow the pipeline and strengthen the ecosystem.
Cooperatively-owned businesses are a viable alternative to traditional winner-takes-all capitalism but few people know what cooperatives are and few entrepreneurs even know this ownership model exists. Start.coop is breaking open the black box and shifting the narrative by:
Partnering with educational and economic development organizations to tell the stories of successful co-ops: startups and mature businesses alike.
Connecting the traditional entrepreneurship and economic development communities with the co-op community.
We equip cooperative entrepreneurs for success.
Start.coop provides entrepreneurs with the supports they need to build thriving cooperatively-owned businesses, from their very first idea through their 1000th client (and beyond). We identify the most promising entrepreneurs from across North America and provide them with training and support embedded in our rigorous business curriculum and world-class mentor and investor community by:
Incubating new/pre-revenue co-ops
Accelerating scalable, post-revenue co-ops in the highly successful Start.coop accelerator program
Providing a range of co-op design and coaching services
We connect cooperative businesses with the capital they need to thrive.
One of the biggest challenges facing cooperatively-owned businesses -- and particularly startups - is the lack of risk-tolerant investment financing. We develop, test, and scale new financing vehicles that support the growth of cooperatives and the cooperative economy at large.
We designed and spun out the Equitable Economy Fund, a growing community of investors explicitly looking to invest in our accelerator's best graduates and other cooperatively-owned companies across the U.S.
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