You may be familiar with concepts like Crowd Funding, Love Money, or Sweet Equity, but a new trend is emerging in the startup world: Skill Funding.

Increasingly, entrepreneurs are not only seeking funds but also crucial expertise that can be integrated sustainably into their business projects.

Tailored Needs Across Development Stages

For early-stage startups, this means integrating a “Market-Man” to accompany the “Product-Men” driving the company’s initiatives.

For businesses in development stages, it entails bringing on board a seasoned profile capable of supporting international expansion, process industrialization, or future fundraising efforts.

Questions for Executives

Given the current landscape, many experienced executives are contemplating a professional pivot and rethinking their career’s second act. Among them, a significant number are considering entrepreneurship.

But how? With whom?

Starting a business? It’s an option, but one needs to have the right idea, develop the product or service from scratch, and navigate the market.

Acquisition? With the current baby boomer generation retiring, many businesses are up for grabs. However, this situation comes with its challenges: strong emotional attachment from the seller toward the business, hefty financial investment, limited banking support, or the seller changing their mind and passing the business to their children.

The Art of Skill Funding

Skill Funding has recently emerged in France as a concrete solution. It involves bridging the gap between entrepreneurs seeking new partners and experienced executives who bring both funding and complementary skills to the table.

Various matchmaking platforms are popping up online. However, a successful Skill Funding operation requires more than just connecting parties. Several conditions must be met:

• Qualification of each party before the introduction to establish trust from the outset.
• Methodology and tools for future partners to challenge their prospective performance.
• Intermediation during negotiations (valuation, financial contribution) to facilitate compromise (setting indicators, relution/dilution clauses, etc.).
• Assistance in drafting the agreement protocol defining the operation’s framework: remuneration, intellectual property, potential separation clauses, etc.

In this context, companies like Skill2Invest, in partnership with Scientipôle Croissance, SwissLife, and Allianz, facilitate these partnerships. They recently celebrated a new partnership early this year, which will create jobs and wealth.

Skill2Invest is a consulting firm specializing in recruitment and consulting with offices in Paris, Lyon, Marseille, and Montpellier. Specifically, they help business leaders welcome new partners or recruit motivated talents, while also assisting ambitious executives in joining growth companies by leveraging their skills.