Tous les projets

How does it work ?

What is BlueBees?

BlueBees Company is a crowdfunding platform, which aims at promoting and easing the achievement of projects related to sustainable agriculture and nutrition, i.e. ecological, economically viable and source of employment and social links in the territories.

  1. Blue Bees helps funding projects by easing the connection between:
  • Innovative projects leaders, in order to allow them to find the funding and the support they need,
  • Web users, by offering them the opportunity to participate in the achievement of a virtuous project, by lending from 20 euros to more, and giving from 5 euros to more.

Funded activities go from the field to the plate:

  • Installation for organic market gardening,
  • Agroforestry and reforestation projects,
  • Development of an agricultural sector from beginning to end,
  • Conversion to organic,
  • First processing of farm products,
  • Creation of recycling and valorization of secondary materials sectors,
  • Innovative start-up companies related to the organic food business,
  • Low-carbon energy (e.g. methanization),
  • Environmental education,
  • Local producers shops.
  1. Blue Bees connects producers and distributors, and thus allows creating business opportunities for projects leaders.

For example, selection committees are regularly organized with Nature et Découverte’s teams.

  1. Blue Bees is a communication booster

During the crowdfunding campaign, Blue Bees does its best to help with the project’s communication (flyer, mailing, social networks, specialized blog, etc).

In a nutshell, Blue Bess acts as an agricultural transition catalyst. It is the citizen funding of tomorrow. It is a tool for solidarity-based savings with a strong agricultural dimension. Of all human activities, agriculture is the most essential, as no human being can do without food. It’s also the economic activity that links us the most to nature.

Janine Benyuce, in her book “Biomimétisme“, dedicates her first chapter to agriculture, and concludes by asserting: “if we are really devoted to the creation of a new system, to the achievement of a new paradigm, the base on which we must build our project, the first brick to lay, is agriculture”.


With Blue Bees, everyone wins ! The project leader can realize his project, the web user can win money, and Blue Bees can go on with suggesting new projects !

Let’s initiate together a virtuous circle : more awareness of people, more projects funded, more economic, social and environmental benefits for the Planet, its citizens and the generations to come !

 

Start lending from 20 euros

With Blue Bees, you can:

  • Chose the projects you prefer,
  • Lend them money, up to 2000 € per project,
  • Access all of your loan agreements,
  • Get your repayments and interests on your Blue Bees’ account,
  • Follow the progress of the projects, thanks to our regular communications,
  • Get your money back on your bank account whenever you want once the project is repaid,
  • Reinvest in other companies the repayment maturities that you collect in order to improve your yield.
  • Share the companies’ projects to which you lend by using sharing buttons, found on every project, to ensure their success.

Lending money presents a RISK OF NON-REPAYMENT : you should diversify your loans and lend only the money that you don’t need on a short-term notice.


Steps

1) Open your Blue Bees account by filling in the short online form.

2) Credit your account by paying by wire transfer or credit card.

3) Select the projects you wish to lend or give money to, and select the desired amount (from 20 to 2000 euros).

2 & 3 bis) You can choose to participate directly to the project you like, by clicking on “invest” or “participate”, without going through the “credit your account” step.  

Blue Bees gives you access to all information you need to make your choice :

  • Description of the Project leader and of the partner,
  • Project details,
  • Business and financing plans,
  • Financial accounts status for the companies existing for more than a year.

4) Once the fundraising is over, the borrower signs a loan agreement (with a detailed repayment schedule) which links him to each contributor and is available online. Funds are transferred to the borrower, net of Blue Bees’ commission of 4% excluding tax, only if its fundraising’s objective is reached. If the objective is not reached, all of the lenders are reimbursed without any cost and Blue Bees doesn’t get its commission.

5) You receive an e-mail notification for each repayment term. Your Blue Bees’ account is credited with the repayment term amount.  

 

Selection of the projects to fund

In order to have an objective basis for the selection, Blue Bees gives an overall grade out of twenty-five based on the 5 following subjects :

  • Resilience and agroecological approach,
  • Financial analysis,
  • The project leader's personality,
  • The project’s ecosystem,
  • The existence of a guarantee.

Two criteria are eliminatory: the project doesn’t uphold the principles of agroecology and the financial analysis’ grade doesn’t exceed 4/7.

If the overall grade is below 12.5, the project isn’t selected.  

  • The project’s objective is in line with Blue Bees’ mission

The project respects human and its environment. It brings economic benefits (jobs creation) but also environmental benefits (such as energy or chemical inputs savings, expansion of biodiversity, regeneration of the soils) and/or social benefits (such as bringing the consumer and the producer closer, a North/South solidarity, fight against inequalities).

  • The project is economically viable

The project leader gives Blue Bees a business plan including:

  • An estimated income statement over the loan period,
  • A liquidity plan,
  • A financing plan specifying all of the financing sources: self-financing, subsidy, bank loan, private investor, guarantees.

Blue Bees analyzes the business plan and thus evaluates the repayment capacity of the project leader.

Furthermore, Blue Bees will check some of the structure and profitability ratios:

  • Debt/equity
  • Gross margin
  • Net income/sales revenues

For the alerady existing companies, the last 3 balance sheets and income statements will be analyzed.

  • The project is followed by an operational partner

The fact that the project is followed by an organization (incubator, consulting office, commercial company, investment fund, association, etc.) is a real positive factor.

  • The project has other funders

Blue Bees doesn’t fund 100% of the projects. Preferably, Blue Bees would like the project to be supported by a bank or partially funded by equity from the entrepreneur or private/institutional investors.

  • Amount and term

Blue Bees’ loan can amount from 5 000 € to 500 000 € over a repayment term of 1 to 5 years.

  • Cost of the loan for the borrower

The longest the term of the loan, the lower the cost. The annual percentage rate is 6% over a year, 4% over 2 years, 3.3% over 3 years, 3% over 4 years.

 

Start giving from 5 euros

Blue Bees offers projects from associations looking for subventions. In return, get a tax receipt to reduce your donation from your taxes or get an in-kind reward. There can be projects without any compensation.

Blue Bees also offers agricultural entrepreneur projects in the seed stage, who do not have access or little access to bank loan, and for which the recourse to loans is too risky.

Funds are transferred to the project leader, net of Blue Bees’ commission of 8% including tax.

In case of donation, even if the fundraising’s objective isn’t reached, the project leader gets the funds raised. Indeed, we consider that associations have a repeating need for cash to cover their running costs. For projects in the seed stage, the amount of the donation shall strengthen their equity.

(Example: education project for apiculture, suggested and partly funded by Nature et Découvertes’ foundation).

 

How to a file a project?

Send a short description of the project (theme, geographic area, objectives, amount desired) by e-mail to contact@bluebees.fr and we will contact you in the next 24h !

 

How to contact us?                      

  • By phone: (+33) 7.69.44.86.79
  • By e-mail : contact@bluebees.fr
  • By mail: 102c, rue Amelot 75011 Paris