As the investment and consulting firm of French nonprofit Groupe SOS, Le Comptoir de l’Innovation (CDI) was created in 2010 with aims to promote impact investing in France, Europe, and around the world.
It does this through a number of initiatives.
First, its venture capital fund CDI Investissement finances growing social businesses, and its CDI Partners does the same but in emerging markets. To strengthen social ventures, CDI Conseil offers consulting services in strategy, management, and financing, while CDI Plateforme facilitates communication between investors and social entrepreneurs. To round this off, CDI Ratings provides financial and non-financial performance measurement.
Last year, CDI partnered with Social Capital Markets to put together the first Impact² event. This conference gathered 600 investors, policymakers, entrepreneurs, and leaders of the global economy and financial institutions to engage in dialogue about impact investing.
Now that the introductory event has come and gone, it returns for a second year but this time, the focus will be on funding social enterprises.
An event brochure highlights some questions that the event aims to answer:
Who are the major investors?
Why is this market growing so rapidly?
Which companies receive funding?
How can we measure the impact and performances of social enterprises?
What are the roles of public authorities?
The event will take place on April 3 at Paris City Hall. Attendance and for that matter samplings of French champagne is free. Registration can be done online.