After 3 years of activity, Citizenfund is now opening its capital to young people and allowing them to invest financially in impact companies.
As the future belongs to the young, the impact investment fund has decided to create a new share category that allows people under 26 to buy shares at €50. The other cooperative shares (at €250) remain available to all other citizens.
The operation of the investment fund is quite unusual. Its particularity lies in its cooperative governance and its process for financing social enterprises. Indeed, it is the co-operators (investors) who choose the enterprises in which Citizenfund invests, according to the democratic principle “1 person = 1 vote”. A young person investing €50 will therefore have the same weight in the decisions as someone who has invested €50,000. This collective intelligence mechanism is unique in the finance sector.
Growing social start-ups
This democratic operation has enabled Citizenfund to finance 17 emblematic impact start-ups in Belgium: urbike (cargo bike logistics), Incredible Company (corporate wellness), Wilfried (magazine on Belgian politics), CinéCité (neighbourhood cooperative cinema in the SeeU space), Give a Day (volunteering platform), Happy Hours Market (recovery of unsold food), Waio, now Slow-Cosmetics (marketplace for ethical and sustainable products), NewB (sustainable banking), Incofin (microfinance), BC Materials (transformation of excavated soil into building materials), Sonian Wood Coop (relocation of the wood sector from the Soignes forest), Entusia (reusable anti-urinary underwear), Bulkbar (healthy and zero waste snack distributors in companies), Coucou (rental of evening wear), Novacitis (creation of real estate projects dedicated to the social economy), BPart (software for citizen participation) and Ma Ferme (place for rural entrepreneurship and local production) and already has 200 cooperator-investors
Public offering
This opening is part of a broader strategy of public offering (continuous capital increase) launched this autumn in order to reach €500,000 of capital. This will enable Citizenfund to finance around fifteen additional impact startups in 2021-2022.
This issue of new shares comes a few months after Finance&invest.brussels decided to invest €150,000 in the fund via its CoopUs mechanism.
About Citizenfund
Created on 29 May 2017, Citizenfund was born from the will of 7 Brussels entrepreneurs to propose a new participatory financing instrument, to support circular & collaborative economy projects. The Citizenfund uses finance and economy as a virtuous instrument to bring about the positive changes that society needs. The citizen’s investment cooperative calls on its cooperator-investors and the collective intelligence to choose the investments made. Based in Evere, the fund obtained the status of approved cooperative on 24 October 2017 and the support of finance&invest.brussels in May 2021. It has 200 cooperators and has already financed 17 Belgian social enterprises.
Campaign Agenda
11 & 12 sept. 2021 Salon Hope
13 & 14 sept. 2021 Semaine d’accueil des nouveaux étudiants (ULB)
24 sept. 2021 – 16h30 Festival Maintenant : Agir pour changer la société avec mon argent !
30 sept. 2021- 13h Salon 6 Jours Pour
5 oct. 2021 Rencontre d’entrepreneurs sociaux
7 oct. 2021 Transition Award (Mind&Market)
21 oct. 2021 Événement à La Menuiserie (Liège)
23 & 24 oct. 2021 Salon Hope Namur
Multiples session d’informations tout au long de la campagne