IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/techno/v111y2022ics0166497221001668.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Choosing crowdfunding: Why do entrepreneurs choose to engage in crowdfunding?

Author

Listed:
  • Junge, Louise Bech
  • Laursen, Iben Cleveland
  • Nielsen, Kristian Roed

Abstract

As crowdfunding becomes an increasingly common source of financing for a diverse range of entrepreneurs, this paper seeks to add to the literature by qualitatively exploring why entrepreneurs choose to engage in crowdfunding. We find that entrepreneurs often engage in crowdfunding as a first resort with three distinct motives; to raise capital, to validate a business idea, or to create brand awareness. Especially reward-based crowdfunding is often seen as a tool for validate a business idea or generating awareness not as a source of finance. Finally we observe that entrepreneurs’ motives for engaging in crowdfunding often correlate with their maturity and thus motivations for engaging in crowdfunding shift as they mature.

Suggested Citation

  • Junge, Louise Bech & Laursen, Iben Cleveland & Nielsen, Kristian Roed, 2022. "Choosing crowdfunding: Why do entrepreneurs choose to engage in crowdfunding?," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:techno:v:111:y:2022:i:c:s0166497221001668
    DOI: 10.1016/j.technovation.2021.102385
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166497221001668
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.technovation.2021.102385?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Zhao, Eric Yanfei & Lounsbury, Michael, 2016. "An institutional logics approach to social entrepreneurship: Market logic, religious diversity, and resource acquisition by microfinance organizations," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 643-662.
    2. Kaminski, Jermain & Hopp, Christian & Tykvová, Tereza, 2019. "New technology assessment in entrepreneurial financing – Does crowdfunding predict venture capital investments?," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 287-302.
    3. Pietro, Francesca Di & Bogers, Marcel L.A.M. & Prencipe, Andrea, 2021. "Organisational barriers and bridges to crowd openness in equity crowdfunding," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    4. Damien Chaney, 2019. "A principal–agent perspective on consumer co-production: Crowdfunding and the redefinition of consumer power," Post-Print hal-02047974, HAL.
    5. Testa, Stefania & Nielsen, Kristian Roed & Bogers, Marcel & Cincotti, Silvano, 2019. "The role of crowdfunding in moving towards a sustainable society," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 66-73.
    6. Zhang, Haisu & Chen, Weizhi, 2019. "Crowdfunding technological innovations: Interaction between consumer benefits and rewards," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 84, pages 11-20.
    7. N. Berger, Allen & F. Udell, Gregory, 1998. "The economics of small business finance: The roles of private equity and debt markets in the financial growth cycle," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 22(6-8), pages 613-673, August.
    8. Norbert Steigenberger & Hendrik Wilhelm, 2018. "Extending Signaling Theory to Rhetorical Signals: Evidence from Crowdfunding," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 29(3), pages 529-546, June.
    9. Brem, Alexander & Bilgram, Volker & Marchuk, Anna, 2019. "How crowdfunding platforms change the nature of user innovation – from problem solving to entrepreneurship," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 144(C), pages 348-360.
    10. Chaney, Damien, 2019. "A principal–agent perspective on consumer co-production: Crowdfunding and the redefinition of consumer power," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 74-84.
    11. Paschen, Jeannette, 2017. "Choose wisely: Crowdfunding through the stages of the startup life cycle," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 179-188.
    12. Walthoff-Borm, Xavier & Schwienbacher, Armin & Vanacker, Tom, 2018. "Equity crowdfunding: First resort or last resort?," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 513-533.
    13. Maurizio La Rocca & Tiziana La Rocca & Alfio Cariola, 2011. "Capital Structure Decisions During a Firm's Life Cycle," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 37(1), pages 107-130, July.
    14. Caleb Gallemore & Kristian Roed Nielsen & Kristjan Jespersen, 2019. "The uneven geography of crowdfunding success: Spatial capital on Indiegogo," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 51(6), pages 1389-1406, September.
    15. Nielsen, Kristian Roed, 2018. "Crowdfunding through a partial organization lens – The co-dependent organization," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 36(6), pages 695-707.
    16. Garry Bruton & Susanna Khavul & Donald Siegel & Mike Wright, 2015. "New Financial Alternatives in Seeding Entrepreneurship: Microfinance, Crowdfunding, and Peer–to–Peer Innovations," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 39(1), pages 9-26, January.
    17. Ali Mohammadi & Kourosh Shafi, 2018. "Gender differences in the contribution patterns of equity-crowdfunding investors," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 50(2), pages 275-287, February.
    18. Douglas Cumming & Lars Hornuf (ed.), 2018. "The Economics of Crowdfunding," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-319-66119-3, June.
    19. Gerrit K.C. Ahlers & Douglas Cumming & Christina Günther & Denis Schweizer, 2015. "Signaling in Equity Crowdfunding," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 39(4), pages 955-980, July.
    20. Roma, Paolo & Messeni Petruzzelli, Antonio & Perrone, Giovanni, 2017. "From the crowd to the market: The role of reward-based crowdfunding performance in attracting professional investors," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(9), pages 1606-1628.
    21. Aaron F. McKenny & Thomas H. Allison & David J. Ketchen Jr. & Jeremy C. Short & R. Duane Ireland, 2017. "How Should Crowdfunding Research Evolve? A Survey of the Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice Editorial Board," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 41(2), pages 291-304, March.
    22. Jeremy C. Short & David J. Ketchen Jr. & Aaron F. McKenny & Thomas H. Allison & R. Duane Ireland, 2017. "Research on Crowdfunding: Reviewing the (Very Recent) past and Celebrating the Present," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 41(2), pages 149-160, March.
    23. Estrin, Saul & Korosteleva, Julia & Mickiewicz, Tomasz, 2013. "Which institutions encourage entrepreneurial growth aspirations?," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 564-580.
    24. Tingting Fan & Leilei Gao & Yael Steinhart & Darren W Dahl & J Jeffrey Inman & L J Shrum, 2020. "The Small Predicts Large Effect in Crowdfunding," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 47(4), pages 544-565.
    25. Paul Langley & Andrew Leyshon, 2017. "Capitalizing on the crowd: The monetary and financial ecologies of crowdfunding," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 49(5), pages 1019-1039, May.
    26. Kristian Roed Nielsen & Julia Katharina Binder, 2021. "I Am What I Pledge: The Importance of Value Alignment for Mobilizing Backers in Reward-Based Crowdfunding," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 45(3), pages 531-561, May.
    27. Silvio Vismara, 2018. "Information Cascades among Investors in Equity Crowdfunding," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 42(3), pages 467-497, May.
    28. Othmar M. Lehner, 2013. "Crowdfunding social ventures: a model and research agenda," Venture Capital, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(4), pages 289-311, October.
    29. Mollick, Ethan, 2014. "The dynamics of crowdfunding: An exploratory study," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 1-16.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Skare, Marinko & Gavurova, Beata & Polishchuk, Volodymyr, 2023. "A decision-making support model for financing start-up projects by venture capital funds on a crowdfunding platform," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    2. Amina Rizwan & Faisal Mustafa, 2022. "Fintech Attaining Sustainable Development: An Investor Perspective of Crowdfunding Platforms in a Developing Country," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(12), pages 1-17, June.
    3. Dana Nayer & Mosi Rosenboim & Miki Malul, 2024. "The Two Sides of Crowdfunding Success: Attributes and Motivations of Backers and Entrepreneurs—Evidence from Israel," Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Emerging Economies, Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India, vol. 33(1), pages 155-182, February.
    4. Anna Prisco & Valerio Muto & Ciro Troise & Mario Tani, 2022. "How to Engage the Crowds to Create Value? Evidence from the Pathfinder Arena Case," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-22, April.
    5. Zhao, Liang & Sun, Zhe & Chen, Si & Gugnani, Ritika & Sahore, Nidhi, 2024. "Social media opinion leaders and information diffusion of crowdfunding projects: Evidence from China," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).
    6. Jiao, Hao & Wang, Lindong & Yang, Jifeng, 2023. "Standing head and shoulders above others? Complementor experience-based design and crowdfunding success on digital platforms," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Saul Estrin & Susanna Khavul & Mike Wright, 2022. "Soft and hard information in equity crowdfunding: network effects in the digitalization of entrepreneurial finance," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 58(4), pages 1761-1781, April.
    2. Kristian Roed Nielsen & Julia Katharina Binder, 2021. "I Am What I Pledge: The Importance of Value Alignment for Mobilizing Backers in Reward-Based Crowdfunding," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 45(3), pages 531-561, May.
    3. W. Cai & F.H.J. Polzin & F.C. Stam, 2019. "Crowdfunding and Social Capital: A Systematic Literature Review," Working Papers 19-05, Utrecht School of Economics.
    4. Pietro, Francesca Di & Bogers, Marcel L.A.M. & Prencipe, Andrea, 2021. "Organisational barriers and bridges to crowd openness in equity crowdfunding," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    5. Roma, Paolo & Vasi, Maria & Kolympiris, Christos, 2021. "On the signaling effect of reward-based crowdfunding: (When) do later stage venture capitalists rely more on the crowd than their peers?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(6).
    6. Messeni Petruzzelli, Antonio & Natalicchio, Angelo & Panniello, Umberto & Roma, Paolo, 2019. "Understanding the crowdfunding phenomenon and its implications for sustainability," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 138-148.
    7. Alexander C. Lewis & Arkangel M. Cordero & Rachael Xiong, 2021. "Too Red for Crowdfunding: The Legitimation and Adoption of Crowdfunding Across Political Cultures," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 45(3), pages 471-504, May.
    8. Mahmood, Ammara & Luffarelli, Jonathan & Mukesh, Mudra, 2019. "What's in a logo? The impact of complex visual cues in equity crowdfunding," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 41-62.
    9. Andreas Wald & Merete Holmesland & Kalanit Efrat, 2019. "It Is Not All About Money: Obtaining Additional Benefits Through Equity Crowdfunding," Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Emerging Economies, Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India, vol. 28(2), pages 270-294, September.
    10. Michael M. Moedl, 2021. "Two’s a company, three’s a crowd: Deal breaker terms in equity crowdfunding for prospective venture capital," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 57(2), pages 927-952, August.
    11. KURIHARA Koki & HONJO Yuji, 2022. "Determinants of Campaign Success: Empirical evidence from equity crowdfunding in Japan," Discussion papers 22057, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    12. Francesca Pietro, 2021. "The rationale for listing on equity crowdfunding: actual and expected benefits for companies," Economia e Politica Industriale: Journal of Industrial and Business Economics, Springer;Associazione Amici di Economia e Politica Industriale, vol. 48(4), pages 527-549, December.
    13. Bagheri, Afsaneh & Chitsazan, Hasti & Ebrahimi, Ashkan, 2019. "Crowdfunding motivations: A focus on donors' perspectives," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 218-232.
    14. Cinta Borrero-Domínguez & Encarnación Cordón-Lagares & Rocío Hernández-Garrido, 2020. "Sustainability and Real Estate Crowdfunding: Success Factors," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(12), pages 1-13, June.
    15. Walthoff-Borm, Xavier & Schwienbacher, Armin & Vanacker, Tom, 2018. "Equity crowdfunding: First resort or last resort?," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 513-533.
    16. Yasar, Burze & Sevilay Yılmaz, Işıl & Hatipoğlu, Nurullah & Salih, Aslıhan, 2022. "Stretching the success in reward-based crowdfunding," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 205-220.
    17. Troise, Ciro & Tani, Mario & Dinsmore, John & Schiuma, Giovanni, 2021. "Understanding the implications of equity crowdfunding on sustainability-oriented innovation and changes in agri-food systems: Insights into an open innovation approach," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    18. John P. Berns & Maria Figueroa-Armijos & Serge P. da Motta Veiga & Timothy C. Dunne, 2020. "Dynamics of Lending-Based Prosocial Crowdfunding: Using a Social Responsibility Lens," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 161(1), pages 169-185, January.
    19. Penz, R. Frederic & Hörisch, Jacob & Tenner, Isabell, 2022. "Investors in environmental ventures want good money—and a clean conscience: How framing, interest rates, and the environmental impact of crowdlending projects influence funding decisions," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 182(C).
    20. Helen Bollaert & Gaël Leboeuf & Armin Schwienbacher, 2020. "The narcissism of crowdfunding entrepreneurs," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 55(1), pages 57-76, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:techno:v:111:y:2022:i:c:s0166497221001668. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/01664972 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.