Chief impact officer Servane Metzger-Corrigou has been named executive director of the endowment fund, which is now expanding its efforts beyond France into the wider European region and francophone Africa.
Paris-based Ring Capital has announced that it has internalised the management of its venture philanthropy arm Ring Foundation, naming chief impact officer Servane Metzger-Corrigou as its executive director.
Ring Foundation, an endowment fund which launched in 2020, was previously administered and managed by the larger endowment fund of French private bank Banque Transatlantique, with Ring Capital as its advisor.
To date, Ring Foundation has focused primarily on supporting associations in the tech space and those promoting the inclusion of disadvantaged groups in society, but it will also increasingly support activist environmental associations and non-profits working to regenerate France’s deprived regions.
Ring Capital also announced that Ring Foundation would look beyond France to support impact focused entrepreneurs across the wider European region and francophone Africa in line with its impact investment fund strategies, including its most recent investment vehicle, Ring Africa, which is targeting a close of €50m.
“Banque Transatlantique’s endowment fund agreed to host Ring Foundation and bear the cost of administering it,” said Nicolas Celier, co-founder and managing partner at Ring Capital, explaining to Impact Investor that this set-up was typical of how start-up foundations and philanthropic endowment funds were launched in France, namely through the sponsorship of a larger organisation.
“But the bank’s scope of exclusion restricted the types of associations that we could support through our endowment fund. We weren’t able to support associations with an activist profile nor those domiciled in francophone Africa. Bringing Ring Foundation in-house gives us more flexibility to support who we want across a wider geographical scope,” he added.
Metzger-Corrigou will coordinate the support offered to the associations, including overseeing the mentors assigned to each association from Ring Capital’s investment team.
Budget increase
The changes at the endowment fund have also been driven by an increase in its budget. Ring Foundation is allocated 5% of Ring Capital’s turnover, which Celier said was around €300,000 per annum. He said that this amount had increased over recent years in line with the company’s assets under management, which rose from €165m in 2020 to €450m in 2024.
Ring Capital also announced its plans for a new strategy which would allow the Ring Foundation to fundraise externally, offering private investors – including family offices and high net worth individuals – the opportunity to donate to the endowment fund in support of its projects
Two new investments
Six French associations are currently supported through the endowment fund, including two new projects. These include Excellence Ruralités, which seeks to reduce school absenteeism and drop-out rates in France’s disadvantaged rural regions through the creation of specialist schools aimed at disadvantaged children. The association aims to establish five private schools by 2027-2028 with smaller classrooms, specialist teaching staff and a focus on a positive learning experience.
“Our donation and support will help Excellence Ruralités structure their public affairs and fundraising department, namely to gain access to the state-contracted school system. The impact this association can have on the lives of young school aged children is huge and consistent with our own VC investment strategies,” he said.
The other recent addition is Les Collectifs, an action-based employee movement, which supports “activist” staff engaged in the improvement of the environmental and social impact of their organisations by driving change from within.
“Les Collectifs supports groups of activist employees present within large corporates, helping them to move the needle in terms of the social and environmental impact of their organisations, by giving them tools, sharing best practices and connecting them with other activists in the network,” explained Celier.
Les Collectifs already engages with 125 employee groups and has 10,000 members across France and globally, focusing on three pillars; raising awareness and training, changing internal practices and making the case for a redirection of business towards a more responsible model.
“Both associations have solid teams, which can lead their charities on a very strong growth curve,” added Celier.
