Launched in the spring of 2021, the Indigenous Growth Fund is getting its first investment from a private company. Block, an electronic payment specialist based in San Francisco, is devoting three million dollars to this fund intended for the start-up or growth of Canadian Aboriginal businesses.
The $150 million that has made up the fund so far has come from federal public institutions.
For Jean Vincent, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the National Association of Aboriginal Finance Corporations (ANSAF), the organization that manages the fund, the trust granted by this major American company, led by the co-founder of Twitter Jack Dorsey, bodes well.
“The company believes that the product is well structured and of institutional quality and that it will recover capital and return at the end, while helping the First Nations”, explained Mr. Vincent.
The latter believes that the news will encourage other companies to follow suit, in the context of more and more of them being interested in responsible investments on the environmental, social and governance (ESG) levels. Developing entrepreneurship within Aboriginal communities in order to reduce the wealth gap between Aboriginals and non-Aboriginals corresponds precisely to the criteria of social finance, believes Mr. Vincent.
“Our investment […] delivers on our commitment to economic reconciliation and reflects Block’s goal of increasing access to the economy,” Courtney Robinson, Global Head of Financial Inclusion at Block, said in a statement. way of press release. The company has set up what is described as “a US$100 million global social impact investment to support minority and underserved communities.”
For several reasons, Aboriginal entrepreneurs have more difficulty accessing financing. Mr. Vincent cites in particular the geographic remoteness of certain communities, cultural differences and the Indian Act, which makes the property of Aboriginal people non-seizable, which prevents financial institutions from obtaining certain guarantees.
These entrepreneurs can, however, knock on the door of some fifty Aboriginal finance companies that are members of ANSAF. The latter are also receiving more and more requests for increasingly ambitious projects. These companies will thus be able to dip into the fund, whose managers hope it will reach $500 million.