The stages to fund innovative projects
If you’ve got a creative new idea for a project, then you’re probably excited to get it going. If you’ve gotten to try doing it though, then chances are, you’ve realized one thing: finding funds is hard. Especially in France, where regulation makes banks reluctant to grant loans whenever there’s too much of a risk. Unfortunately, risk and innovation go hand-in-hand…
That doesn’t mean you’re about of options, though. In fact, there are quite a few options left for you to fund your business creation project!
Summary:
- The phase of research in development and feasibility
- Developing the project
- During the launch of the product and the development of your activity
The phase of research in development and feasibility
This refers to the moment when you’re going to be evaluating the overall costs of your project. as such, not only do you need to fund the beginning of research and development to see if this innovation is possible, but you also need to start funding industrialization and your marketing strategy.
Basically, you need to keep in mind that equity (the cash of the company) is essential to fund the first investments and the first expenses of your project. However, they also serve as a means to reassure your potential investors that you’ll be able to pay them back if necessary, and it shows that you are involved in your project.
You can also make use of state support at this stage. Though, at first, they only appear in the form of refundable tax credits and the lowering of your social contributions.
Developing the project
This is the second phase of your innovative projects. It’s at this point that you and your associates will start to gather enough funds to create a prototype, and then to mass-produce it.
Obviously, the money you’ll have gathered at this point probably won’t be enough. As such, you’ll have to try to increase your equity thanks to the quality of your project. That way, you’ll be able to reassure even more investors.
At this point, the types of state support you’re likely to be able to get are:
- Subventions to fund the creation of a prototype
- Assistance
- Long-term loans that you won’t have to pay back until a certain amount of time. These allow you to focus on developing your project rather than on the loan
During the launch of the product and the development of your activity
This is the moment when you’ll launch your product on the market. As such, you’ll need to gather a lot of funds so that you can market your product on the national level as well as on the international level.
It’s really only then that banks and investors come into play. Though, the public investment bank BPIFrance still has offers designed for this stage. For example, it can help you fund your Working Capital Requirement (WCR), or offer a guarantee to private banks when you’re applying for a loan.
