I'm not a finance person, but my understanding is that co-ops more often raise capital with traditional loans.
While I believe you are correct that co-ops are not a great fit for the growth business strategy that VCs make their bread and butter on, I believe that on many metrics co-ops tend to be more sustainable than the corporate alternatives[0]. This means they are more likely to be around tomorrow to pay off a loan.
All this to say, it would be great to see more capital for co-ops in the form of traditional loans with favourable interest rates.
Especially in Canada, where capital is tight and productivity is low, I think incentivizing co-ops is a great idea.
The Canadian gov't offers some grants for co-ops, but they are a pittance. Making debt cheaper for co-ops relative to corps (maybe via additional tax breaks on interest?) is, I think super important.
Quebec probably has the single best cooperative financing ecosystem in the world (1B+$). There’s a need for more risk-driven investment instruments in the sector however to seed early stage ventures. Most of the funds end up getting reinvested in existing cooperatives who can already access traditional funding.
While I believe you are correct that co-ops are not a great fit for the growth business strategy that VCs make their bread and butter on, I believe that on many metrics co-ops tend to be more sustainable than the corporate alternatives[0]. This means they are more likely to be around tomorrow to pay off a loan.
All this to say, it would be great to see more capital for co-ops in the form of traditional loans with favourable interest rates.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/social-enterprise-network/2014/m...