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Women’s entrepreneurial activity can significantly impact economic and social development globally, particularly in developing countries. The significant challenges entrepreneurial women face draw the attention of researchers and policymakers. This paper aims to analyse the impact of gender disparity on the likelihood of obtaining equity financing through crowdfunding. The equity crowdfunding industry was selected because it is a non-traditional financial market where gender bias may act differently for women.

To investigate the relationship between gender and equity financing through crowdfunding, this paper applies ordinary least squares regression. The analysis is based on a unique data set of 492 equity crowdfunding campaigns launched between 2013 and 2017 on all existing platforms in Brazil, Chile and Mexico.

The analysis reveals that the involvement of at least one woman on the board of firms seeking equity financing increases campaign success rates in terms of the investors’ average pledge, the target amount reached at the end of the campaign and the percentage raised at the end of the campaign exceeding the initial fundraising goal. Altogether, this suggests that equity crowdfunding campaigns should be based on gender equality in the firms’ boards. The research finds evidence that there is no gender disparity in the likelihood of a campaign being financed by a greater number of investors.

These findings have implications for Latin American female entrepreneurs when selecting funding sources and policymakers when defining political actions to remove the barriers at the root of this historic inequality in female entrepreneurs’ access to finance.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this document analyses the gender disparity in the Latin American equity crowdfunding market, shedding light on women’s access to crowdfunding financing for the first time.

This paper aims to contribute to the scientific debate concerning the impact of equity crowdfunding on the performance of crowdfunded firms after campaigning. To this aim, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between the characteristics of the campaign and the subsequent firm innovativeness.

This study adopts a quantitative research approach to evaluate if the entrepreneurial choices affecting the characteristics of the equity crowdfunding campaigns have an impact on the post-campaign firm innovativeness.

The results of the models show that the campaign characteristics have a direct impact on the firm innovativeness, both in terms of offering and communication and the campaign performance.

This paper presents one of the first studies to investigate the relationship between the choice of campaign characteristics and the post-campaign firm innovativeness. As such, the study contributes to both the literature concerning start-up innovation and the literature about the impact of equity crowdfunding.

Belonging to the financial technologies’ companies, equity-based crowdfunding platforms offer investors the opportunity to become shareholders through the purchase of small equity stakes of new innovative ventures. This paper aims to investigate gender-related differences in the behaviour of investors in firms seeking equity financing in Latin America.

Using a unique database, with combined information from different equity crowdfunding platforms in Brazil, Chile and Mexico, the authors study the population of 492 projects between 2013 and 2017. To analyse the relationship between investors’ gender-related differences and equity crowdfunding investment, this paper applies Poisson regression.

Results suggest that the probability that an investor finances a firm is based on gender bias. Investors prefer firms led by entrepreneurs that are similar to them in terms of gender. Furthermore, the authors find evidence that both female and male investors are risk-averse and are more likely to invest in the equity of firms that are older and offer a higher percentage of equity. However, female investors are associated with firms that are on average older and offer 0.02% more equity.

These findings have implications for crowdfunding platforms managers when selecting their target companies and policymakers when defining political actions to promote greater use of equity crowdfunding among female entrepreneurs and decrease barriers hindering women’s access to investment.

Unique in its proposition and data usage, this study sheds light on the relationship between investors and entrepreneurs in the Latin American equity crowdfunding market.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the initial investment's motivations and study the reinvesting motivations. The results revealed differences in reinvestors' motivations of reinvestors in both winning and losing situations. Specifically, financial return and excitement motives were supported for win and loss situations, while recognition was supported for loss and pleasure in win situations.

The impact of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations on reinvestors was tested using the structural equation model. Furthermore, the framework was analysed with survey data from a total of 355 digital workers from Amazon Mechanical Turk, one of the world's largest crowdsourcing platforms.

The results indicate that there are differences in the motivations for reinvestors when they are in both winning and losing situations. Financial return and excitement motives were supported for win and loss situation, while recognition was supported in loss and pleasure in win situation.

This study makes it possible to better understand the motivations behind crowdfunding reinvestment among digital workers. To build on this work, more studies should be conducted with different samples to test the generalisability of these results. Moreover, future studies on different samples could determine whether the same motivations would hold for other investors or whether another motivation would have greater impact on these reinvestment decisions.

While previous research on equity crowdfunding has predominantly focused on intrinsic and extrinsic motivations for participating and investing in equity crowdfunding platforms, the motives that specifically affect winning or losing situations for reinvestors have been largely overlooked.

The authors investigate whether matchings in equity crowdfunding are more likely to happen if homophily exists between investors and investees. They focus on gender, age and geographical proximity as crucial dimensions of similarity among individuals and thus of homophily. Furthermore, they investigate whether the effect of homophily depends on the risk of opportunism, which investors allegedly attribute to proponents basing on their area of residence.

The authors analyze a hand-collected database of 13 equity crowdfunding campaigns launched by Italian innovative start-ups from January 2013 to June 2016, which includes information about 384 equity crowdfunding investments carried out by 361 different investors.

The authors find a significant effect of geographical proximity and age similarity in explaining the probability that an investor finances a campaign. Moreover, these effects are particularly relevant if the proponent is located in areas characterized by a high risk of opportunistic behavior. Interestingly enough, they do not detect any significant effect related to gender.

In this paper, the authors have the unique opportunity to analyze a whole market (the Italian market) during three years, from inception (2013–2016), and to collect the identities of the investors in all successful campaigns.

A network of partners helps and assists a crowdfunding platform (CFP) in scouting, assessing and selecting projects. This cooperation increases the number of successful projects by attracting a sizable number of investors, proponents and attracting marginal investors when a campaign falls short of the threshold for success. This study examines the role of partner networks in a platform ecosystem, specifically in terms of number of different partners and their diversity in the performance of the crowdfunding campaign.

Using logistic and linear regressions, we analyze a sample of 233 projects, both funded and not funded, launched by 10 Italian equity CFPs between 2014 and 2018.

Our findings indicate that the variety of partners in a platform's network influence the probability of campaign success and how much capital the proponent company raises. CFPs are resource-constrained new ventures, and a network with a wider variety of partners ensures the strategic resources and competencies that are required in an early stage market, thus facilitating campaign funding.

The variety of partner networks could help CFPs to offer unique and strategic value propositions and define the competitive positioning of platforms.

This study provides a deeper understanding of the determinants of equity crowdfunding campaign performance by emphasizing the role of CFP's network of partners on the entire crowdfunding ecosystem and its underlying organizational elements.

This study aims to establish the shape of investment dynamics in equity crowdfunding to better understand backer behavior.

This study provides insights into when backers invest in successful funding campaigns. It uses t-tests to compare differences in means between observation windows during successful funding campaigns. It is based on 4,938 transactions from 61 campaigns, focusing on the first and last tail ends.

In contrast to previous findings, the current investment dynamics seem more U-shaped than L-shaped. This supports previous findings about a strong start but also suggests a late collective attention effect. The strength is higher at the first tail end. However, differences in the later tail ends are statistically significant and emphasize the presence of late investment activities, especially in crowded or less complex campaigns.

These findings emphasize the importance of signaling during the entire funding window. This encourages platforms to invest in user-friendly functionalities that guide entrepreneurs and help backers when investing in successful campaigns.

This study improves the understanding of backer behavior and suggests changing investment dynamics in equity crowdfunding. In addition, this pattern contrasts with previous findings on dynamic collective attention effects in rich digitally informative markets, implying two attention effects when uncertainty is high.

This empirical study uses herd behavior model to explore the role of anchor investors in ensuring fundraising success and overfunding of crowdfunded ventures.

Qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) is applied to find the configurational patterns describing how anchor investors' information disclosure leads to successful financing and overfunding.

Even when the anchor investor's resume is not detailed or the anchor investor has little experience in entrepreneurial investment, success or overfunding can be achieved, provided the anchor investor is a corporation rather than an individual. For individual anchor investors, a detailed resume matters. Overfunding can be achieved even when an individual anchor investor makes a small relative investment, if this small relative investment is compensated for by a detailed resume. Experience in entrepreneurial investment is crucial when individual anchor investors have few previous investments. Regardless of the anchor investor's identity, investment in absolute terms is crucial for crowdfunding success when experience in entrepreneurial investment is low. Such experience must be extensive if the anchor investor's resume is not detailed.

Both entrepreneurs and crowdfunding platforms can benefit from the findings in relation to the design of campaigns that use anchor investors' informational cues to achieve success and overfunding.

The study examines the importance of anchor investors' information disclosure in digital crowdfunding environments, differentiating between individual and corporate anchor investors.

本實證研究使用羊群行為模型, 去探究錨定投資者在確保眾籌活動可達成功籌資以及過多籌資方面所扮演的角色。

研究人員以定性比較分析法、去找出描述錨定投資者的資訊公佈如何帶來成功融資和過多籌資的配置模式。

研究結果顯示、只要錨定投資者不是個人、而是一間公司, 則即使他們的履歷不詳盡, 又或他們對企業投資的經驗淺薄, 也無礙籌資或過多籌資的成功完成。如錨定投資者為個人, 則詳盡的履歷會影響甚鉅。即使個人錨定投資者相對而言參與少量的投資, 但若這少量的投資給他們詳盡的履歷所彌補的話, 則過多籌資仍可成功達到。若個別錨定投資者原有的投資量不多的話, 則企業投資的經驗至為重要。不管錨定投資者的身份是什麼, 若他們對企業投資所持的經驗淺薄, 則按絕對值計算的投資額對眾籌能否成功至為重要。若錨定投資者的履歷不詳盡, 則這種經驗必須是豐富廣泛的。

本研究區分了個人錨定投資者與公司錨定投資者兩者對眾籌的影響, 就此而研究在數碼的眾籌環境裡, 錨定投資者信息公佈的重要性。

研究結果可幫助企業家和群眾募資平台去設計可使用錨定投資者的資訊提示來達至成功眾籌和過多籌資的活動。

The purpose of this paper is to develop initial evidence about the nature and features of crowdfunding in China, given it is largely unregulated regulatory frameworks.

The paper used extensive desk research using data collected from the public and private sectors, after which the data was analyzed parallel to existing academic literature, that is, institutional context by Bruton et al. (2014). This paper uncovered patterns of development, profiling crowdfunding platforms, examining the regulatory landscape and providing antecedents of successful crowdfunding projects in China.

When the traditional financial markets are hard to reach, micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) were starved for capital. Crowdfunding can play a major role in funding and risk sharing. It is an innovative and dynamic vehicle for MSMEs as well as enthusiastic investors in China. Since its initial introduction to China in 2009, crowdfunding has gained substantial popularity in a relatively short period. Currently, there is still not an identifiable guideline on how to delineate the significance of the crowdfunding platform. The development of crowdfunding in China faces a few unresolved key issues. As researchers exploring this phenomenon in new ways, crowdfunding platforms can be enhanced in a manner that benefits the capital seeker, investors and society as a whole.

There is a dearth of information on start-up crowdfunding in Asia. With little data available to analyze, so this paper hopes to contribute to knowledge and provide valuable information to researchers and industry representations. Crowdfunding represents a potentially disruptive change in the way that new ventures are funded. This paper represents an initial analysis in the study of new ventures in China. Finally, the authors provide recommendations for entrepreneurs, investors and policymakers as well as researchers and practitioners with suggestions about yet unexplored avenues of research.

The paper discusses the rationale for a widespread reliance on Codes of Conduct (CoC) in European crowdfunding through the lenses of economic theories of self-regulation. By analysing the institutional design of CoCs in crowdfunding, the paper illustrates the differences in their regulatory context, inclusiveness, monitoring and enforcement. It offers the first systematic overview of substantial rules of CoCs in crowdfunding.

A comparative case study of nine CoCs in Europe is used to illustrate differences in their institutional design and discern the economic purpose of the CoC.

The institutional design of different CoCs in Europe mainly supports voluntary theories of self-regulation. In particular, the theory of reputation commons has the most explanatory power. The substantial rules of CoC in different markets show the potential sources of market failure through the perspectives of platforms.

CoCs appear in various regulatory, cultural, and industry contexts of different countries. Some of the institutional design features of CoC might be a result of these characteristics.

Crowdfunding associations wishing to develop their own CoC may learn from a comparative overview of key provisions.

For governments in Europe, contemplating creating or revising bespoke crowdfunding regimes, the paper identifies areas where crowdfunding platforms perceive market failure.

This paper is the first systematic study of self-regulatory institutions in European crowdfunding. The paper employs a theoretical framework for the analysis of self-regulation in crowdfunding and provides a comparison of a regulatory context, inclusiveness, monitoring and enforcement of different CoCs in Europe.