مقاله سال ۲۰۱۶

Startupsrequire resources to succeed and one of the most important resources is money. Traditionally, the options for capital formation available to startups were few and comprised primarily of FFF (friends, family, fools), angel investors, venture capitalists, and seed funding (Startup Explore, 2014). More recently, there has been a surge in alternative models. Among these, crowdfunding has emerged as a popular source of capital formation in various fields–—from purely for-profit to social causes, technology, performing arts, real estate, and music.

Crowdfunding draws inspiration from the ideas of microfinance (Morduch, 1999) and crowdsourcing. It encompasses the outsourcing of an organizational function (capital formation) to a strategicallydefined network of actors (crowd) in the form of an open call (Kietzmann, 2017) via dedicated websites (crowdfunding platforms). And small amounts of money from a large number of people add up. In 2010, crowdfunding was a relatively small industry to the tune of $880 million worldwide. In 2015, estimates put the global crowdfunding industry at $34.4 billion (Massolution, 2015).

Crowdfunding is especially suited for startups trying to turn an idea into a viable business and young companies aiming to maintain or grow their venture (Stemler, 2013). Both face challenges when trying to secure funding. Due to lack of credit and operating history, startup founders often have diffi- culties conveying the value of their proposed venture to investors. Startups, therefore, have difficulty accessing traditional funding options such as bank loans, venture capital, or angel investment. These challenges are exacerbated for social ventures, which are driven by the ambiguous and sometimes dichotomous goal to achieve a double bottom line: to balance social and for-profit goals (Lehner, 2013). In addition, it is often prohibitively expensive for young businesses to access wider traditional capital markets (Tunguz, 2013). These and other factors, such as the shortage of capital provoked by the global financial crisis and the growth in other forms of crowdsourcing, have contributed to the rise of the crowdfunding phenomenon in recent years (Giudici, Guerini, & Lamastra, 2013).