CLMPC research has found that the role assumed by labour-sponsored funds in leveraging investment cannot be underestimated. The 1994 CSTIER study discovered that the Fonds de solidarité had considerable experience leveraging assorted transactions, from start-ups to restructurings and rescues. CSTIER calculated that since 1983, on average, every one dollar put up by the fund was met by three dollars from other sources. It also points out that Fonds de solidarité leveraging entails not only recruiting new investors, but persuading existing investors to remain with a deal.^{Endnote 21}

Data from the Fonds de solidarité show that an even more potent lever exists in its separately-capitalized and mandated pools of equity, known as specialized, regional and local funds. Most of these pools (there were twenty-four at the start of 1995, valued at $124 million) reflect co-investment with financial and industrial partners. It is estimated that every one dollar supplied by the Fonds de solidarité to specialized, regional and local funds leveraged, on average, an additional $4.50 from other Québec sources.^{Endnote 22}

There is evidence that widening of the capital supply spectrum, implicit in the creation of labour-sponsored funds, is having an impact. A recent survey of owners/managers of small and medium-sized companies in Canada (though respondents tended to represent mid-sized concerns and not a broader universe) revealed a dramatic increase in the use of venture capital between 1993 and 1994. In the latter year, almost one in ten companies in this sample group were utilizing some form of venture financing. Venture capital deployment was at its highest in Québec - 12 percent of total respondents. These data are highlighted in Figure 9.

Arthur Andersen survey analysts note that a catalyst for this development was probably some recent disenchantment among businesspeople with public securities exchanges. The high profile of labour-sponsored funds has been cited as another possible cause.

This has been confirmed by officers in leading funds who say that increasing inquiries are motivated - according to inquirers - by extensive fund advertising and media coverage. Working Opportunity itself received about formal 375 business plans and financial proposals from across British Columbia in 1994. Working Ventures received approximately three times this amount from across the country in the same year.^{Endnote 23} This high level of demand is typical among the leading funds.

Finally, ACVCC gives new evidence of the impact of labour-sponsored funds in making capital available to small business. The 1994 report states that of the 296 enterprises (two-thirds of which had fewer than 50 employees) financed by venture capital institutions in that year, 64 percent were accessing such capital for the first time. The large volume of new venture capital introduced in recent years, triggered by labour-sponsored funds, is credited with this level of new users.^{Endnote 24}