We use hand-collected data from four German crowdinvesting portals to analyze what determines individual investment decisions in crowdinvesting. In contrast with the crowdfunding campaigns on Kickstarter where the typical pattern of project support is U-shaped, we find crowdinvesting dynamics to...

This paper first presents the development of the crowdinvesting market in Europe since its start in 2007. Then, using hand-collected data on the complete set of crowdinvesting campaigns run in Germany, the paper shows that successful campaigns tend to be launched by new startups and when the...

Peer-to-business lending refers to online platforms facilitating loans from individuals to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). We conjecture that easy-to-understand risk ratings conveyed by the platform play a pronounced role in influencing the borrowing success of SMEs and that more...

Today, startups often obtain financing via the Internet through many small contributions of non-sophisticated investors. Yet little is known about whether these startups can ultimately build enduring businesses. In this article, we hand-collected data from 14 different equity crowdfunding (ECF)...

The Internet-based crowdinvesting market in Europe has developed significantly since its start in 2007 and has become an alternative source of finance for entrepreneurs to sell securities through the Internet to small investors. This market evidences a great variety in platform design and...

Equity crowdfunding is a new form of entrepreneurial finance, in which investors do not receive perks or engage in pre-purchase of the product, but rather participate in the future cash flows of a firm. In this paper, we analyze what determines individual investment decisions in this new...

Using Kickstarter, the largest global reward-based crowdfunding platform, we conduct an exhaustive search of all fraud cases from 2010 through 2015 for nine different countries. While fraud in this new market has been of concern to regulators, it is arguably of greater importance to the nascent...

In this paper, we show that too strong investor protection may harm small firms and entrepreneurial initiatives, which contrasts with the traditional ‘law and finance' view that stronger investor protection is better. This situation is particularly relevant in equity crowdfunding, which refers...