The three sessions organised in collaboration with our member DIESIS, explored how national and regional federations of cooperatives can support innovative cooperative startups. Participants examined financial support mechanisms and non-financial tools to foster the development of cooperative startups and discussed how they can actively support innovation in the context of social and worker cooperatives. 

Through the presentation of various experiences, participants from France, Italy, Malta, Poland, Romania, Spain, Türkiye and the United Kingdom shared knowledge and exchanged practices, in perfect harmony with the spirit of mutual learning. 

The MLS shed light on the challenges and opportunities associated with supporting innovative cooperative startups. In addition to insufficient access to funding and limited supportive legislative frameworks at European and national level, the lack of knowledge about cooperatives as an alternative form of enterprise, especially among young people, and the limited capacity to attract talent and investment seem to hamper the development of businesses. To tackle these challenges, many of our members have developed non-financial tools, services and soft infrastructure to support cooperative startups in the development of this unique form of business.

For instance, in Spain, COCETA created Click&Coop, a shared cooperative knowledge platform that, by applying the principle of intercooperation, provides users with existing experiences, technical support and connections with the cooperative movement. In the UK, Co-operatives UK has also initiated different exemplary initiatives such as the UnFound Accelerator, a support programme for potential cooperators in the digital economy, a pilot investment in the Equal Care Co-op with a participatory governance model involving both care givers and receivers, and Co-op Hackathon, a two-day event that brings together people within the cooperative movement and workers from the tech sector. In Türkiye, Youth Deal Coop has designed KoopDestek, a free question-and-answer platform where cooperatives based in the country and in the MENA region can submit their queries about managing their businesses. 

Considering that access to funding is the main issue in helping cooperative startups emerge and grow, some members have implemented funding instruments and financial support mechanisms. Coopfond, an offshoot of the Italian federation Legacoop, launched Coopstartup in 2013 with the aim of promoting entrepreneurship among young people and strengthening the presence of cooperatives in innovative markets. The program offers a comprehensive toolbox designed to support cooperative ideas in their early stages. In France, CGSCop created CoopVenture in 2021, a fund initially financed with €4.5 million and recently optimised, aimed at supporting both cooperative and traditional startups in the digital economy. 

Throughout the MLS, federations have illustrated through their best practices how innovation in cooperatives and the support they provide can take multiple but complementary forms.  

In the Spanish region of Valencia, FEVECTA has translated its vision of innovation, which encompasses cooperative entrepreneurship, sustainability and social responsibility, into the Llamp 3i programme, which has supported the development of 15 cooperative startups in the energy and environment, digital and technology, and creative industry sectors. In the Navarre region in Spain, ANEL has focused the concept of innovation on youth engagement through the cross-border JeunESS project and the EdukaCoop awareness-raising initiative for schools and training centres within the framework of the POCTEFA Interreg programme. 

Cooperatives themselves, who are inherently innovative, play a crucial role in supporting other forward-looking solutions to emerge or in developing their own. During the MLS, the Spanish cooperative Tandem Social explained how they decided to shift the focus of their consulting services from tangible solutions to the purpose of their clients’ idea balancing social impact and economic sustainability. With the support of the SKIFT project, the Italian cooperative CSA COESI offering support services to cooperative startups, has innovated its own services to provide ESG assessment and sustainability reporting to small and micro social economy enterprises engaged in the green transition. In the UK, the cooperative Kitty’s Launderette has found innovative ways, including a fund in the culture sector, crowdfunding and social economy grants, to financially support its services for disadvantaged people. In France, Mobicoop has recently introduced digital commons to attract co-investors interested in developing fair projects in the shared mobility sector. 

During the last session of the MLS, participants delved into the concept of innovation with the aim of understanding what is meant by cooperative innovation and what is the culture and support needed for innovative cooperative startups to thrive. 

Overall, participants seem to share the idea that the concept of innovation relegated to the digital sphere is limited. Innovation can be found in the cooperative form itself. In the way cooperatives respond to the need of the community they serve, via economic, social, cultural and environmental services, but also in the way they do it, through a democratic, inclusive and participated model.  The answers to their challenges can be found in the ecosystem that cooperatives have created for self-support and self-empowerment.  

Federations play a central role in finding the right tools, promoting the necessary culture and environment for the growth of the movement. Federations need to constantly renew their narrative on the ownership model and facilitate access and raise awareness outside the cooperative ecosystem. They shall enhance the cooperative ecosystem in terms of digital infrastructure and secure technologies, business support, advisory services and technical guidance and, above all, cross-sectoral intercooperation. 

CECOP thanks all the participants for their active involvement and contributions and looks forward to continuing this journey to further explore cooperative innovation.