Series - Editorial Fellowship: Social Finance in Canada Suncor Energy Foundation 2023/24

In conversation with Mansib Rahman, co-founder and CEO of Radish

Author Diane Berard

Why It Matters

Montreal’s Radish plans to be the first co-op in the world to issue shares. Those shares would not guarantee voting rights, only economic rights. Co-op members would keep all the influence. Will it work? This conversation concerns financial innovation, finance’s role in hyper-local ventures, investors’ extra-financial motivations, and the risk of mixing money and the common good.

What is Radish Co-op? It is a food delivery application, like Uber and DoorDash, structured as a co-op. Our members, the restaurants, the employees, including the drivers and the consumers, own us. What problem are you addressing? Restaurants are precarious businesses. In the U.S., I believe more than 42 per cent of workers live under the poverty line. They have no savings, and they can’t move forward. And the arrival of big delivery platforms, with their high fees, proved detrimental to the sector’s health.

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