• Co-working space for social entrepreneurs since 2008
• 5 locations in France
• A social business accelerator = La Social Factory (incubator for start-ups and non profit)
• It represents a network of almost 300 alumni

Margaux has expertise in supporting young entrepreneurs (18-26 years), supporting women entrepreneurs and in community animation.

Expertise:

• Support for young entrepreneurs (18-26 years)
• Support for women entrepreneurs
• Community animation

About the organisation

La Ruche is dedicated to promoting social innovation at all sections of society. Its ambition is to help create local movements and projects that animate social innovation. Therefore it gathers them together in order to create a genuine network of actors that make social innovation move forward. Its vision is firmly focused on people and their ability to bring about significant changes around them, notably by starting innovative or creative businesses. Its approach towards economic and human development consists in empowering people to innovate in reaction to the challenges they are facing. It also supports public and private actors with social innovation in order to create favourable conditions for change.

La Ruche relies on a network of 5 physical spaces - 3 in Paris and its close suburbs, 1 in Bordeaux and 1 in Marseille - where it hosts and animates a community of entrepreneurs. La Ruche is also spreading elsewhere in France with new spaces emerging in Amiens, Nice or Rennes for example.

It is a network where each component benefits from feedback and assistance from other Ruche. It also adapts to the challenges of its local environment and builds genuine ecosystems favourable to the development of the companies it hosts and accompanies.

La Ruche has been hosting since 2008 a community of 350 entrepreneurs who address social challenges. Thanks to its privileged partnership with La Social Factory, a training organisation dedicated to social innovation, La Ruche has accompanied more than 90 people in launching, accelerating and developing their responsible company.

For more than 7 years, La Ruche has built incubation and acceleration courses throughout the country. Its position within the entrepreneurial ecosystem enables it to detect some needs and it builds, in coordination with the territorial networks, 9- to 12-month courses designed to source, coach and assist various kind of entrepreneurs. For example, it has been accompanying women entrepreneurs for 2 years with Les Audacieuses, a program which has already enabled 16 women to start their own businesses.

About the network

In addition, La Ruche has settled privileged partnerships with major companies - KPMG France, BNP Paribas, Orange, Microsoft France, etc. - that are committed to providing key expertise. It has enabled it to provide high-quality training and to adapt to changes in the entrepreneurial sector, notably digitalisation issues. The last call for projects is the main example: the Digital Impact, a 10-month acceleration program, is aimed at projects throughout the country using digital tools to increase their impact.

Finally, thanks to the support provided to the winners of the Google Impact Challenge, the teams have developed a thorough know-how in the implementation of tools designed for more mature structures. This program, fostered by Google.org, aims at providing 10 French associations with financial support and technical expertise. These associations must develop projects with a strong social or environmental impact thanks to a digital strategy. La Social Factory, alongside with Investir&+, supported the 10 prize-winning associations for 12 months to help them plan their project roll-out, increase their skills, expand their network and, for the younger ones, scale up.