Le financement des entreprises sociales- une comparaison France-Californie : Accès aux fonds propres et aux financements moyen terme[Social businesses funding- France vs. California: Access to equity and equity-like capital]

This paper aims at comparing French and Californian social businesses' financial structure and their access to equity and equity-like funding. The author finds from the study of an 800-French social businesses sample that these French organizations suffer from a lack of access to this type of capital. This puts them at risk in their early stages and makes it difficult to develop at a larger scale. As seen from France, the Californian social business sector seems more flourishing, and the access to equity funding a less acute issue. This paper tries to put this first impression to test and to know both institutionally and factually about social businesses in California, their financial structure depending upon their stages, and the type of financial tools they have (or don't have) access to. Although the social investors' community is much more numerous in California than in France, and that many major financial institutions and foundations have recently taken several decisive steps towards a highly structured "impact investing" market, the author identifies several nuances to be made. Among them, the fact that the french legal frame incentivizes the diversion from part of the flow of capital towards these businesses, whereas the american legal structure still refrains in part these types of investments. Moreover, the numerous social investors' community in California is also extremely scattered in their investment strategy, infringing in a way the flow of capital the social businesses can have access to: social investment is still a nascent field and entails today a wide scope of definitions, depending on the investor.