Crowdfunding

Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising monetary contributions from a large number of people, today often performed via internet-mediated registries, but the concept can also be executed through mail-order subscriptions, benefit events, and other methods. Crowdfunding is a form of alternative finance, which has emerged outside of the traditional financial system.

The crowdfunding model is based on three types of actors: the project initiator who proposes the idea and/or project to be funded; individuals or groups who support the idea; and a moderating organization (the "platform") that brings the parties together to launch the idea .

In 2013, over US$5.1 billion was raised via crowdfunding worldwide.

History

printed receipt 135 x 97 mm issued between 1850 and 1857 to support the French philosopher Auguste Comte.

Crowdfunding has a long history with more than one root. Books have been crowdfunded for centuries: Authors and publishers would advertise book projects in praenumeration or subscription schemes. The book would be written and published if enough subscribers signaled their readiness to buy the book once it was out. The subscription business model is not exactly crowdfunding since the actual flow of money will only begin with the arrival of the product. The list of subscribers has, on the other hand, the power to create the necessary confidence among investors that is needed to risk the publication.

War bonds are theoretically a form of crowdfunding military conflicts. London's mercantile community saved the Bank of England in the 1730s when customers demanded their pounds to be converted into gold - they supported the currency until confidence in the pound was restored and thus crowdfunded their own money.

A clearer case of modern crowdfunding is Auguste Comte's scheme to issue notes for the public support of his further work as a philosopher. The "Premiere Circulaire Annuelle adressée par l’auteur du Systeme de Philosophie Positive" was published on 14 March 1850 and several of these notes, blank and with sums have survived.

The cooperative movement of the 19th and 20th centuries is a broader precursor. It generated collective groups, such as community or interest-based groups, pooling subscribed funds to develop new concepts, products, and means of distribution and production, particularly in rural areas of Western Europe and North America. In 1885, when government sources failed to provide funding to build a monumental base for the Statue of Liberty, a newspaper-led campaign attracted small donations from 160,000 donors.

Modern crowdfunding is a new phenomenon mostly with its use of social medias. It first gained popular and mainstream use here in arts and music communities.

The first instance of crowdfunding was in 1997, when fans underwrote an entire U.S. tour for the British rock group Marillion, raising US$60,000 in donations by means of a fan-based Internet campaign. The idea was conceived and managed by fans without any involvement from the band, although Marillion themselves used this method successfully to fund the recording and marketing of their 2001 album Anoraknophobia, the first crowdfunded recording. They continued to do so with subsequent albums Marbles (2004), Happiness is the Road (2008), and Sounds That Can't Be Made (2012).

In the film industry, independent writer/director Mark Tapio Kines designed a website in 1997 for his then-unfinished first feature film Foreign Correspondents. By early 1999, he had raised more than US$125,000 on the Internet from at least 25 fans, providing him with the funds to complete his film.

In 2002 the "Free Blender" campaign was an early software crowdfunding precursor. The campaign aimed for open-sourcing the Blender raytracer software by collecting $100,000 from the community while offering additional benefits for donating members.

Crowdfunding gained traction after the launch of ArtistShare, in 2003. Following ArtistShare, more crowdfunding sites started to appear on the web such as IndieGoGo (2008), Kickstarter (2009) and Microventures (2010). However, Sellaband, started in 2006 as a music-focused platform, initially controlled the crowdfunding market. Research suggests that this can be contributed to creators and funders, who perceive the platform to be more valuable when there are more members. Later, Kickstarter gained popularity for its wide-ranging focus. Both platforms prohibit equity funding. Though Sellaband offered revenue sharing, a type of equity crowdfunding, for three years after the platform’s founding. It was later controlled over by a German company and heightened security restrictions.

The phenomenon of crowdfunding is older than the term "crowdfunding." The earliest recorded use of the word was by Michael Sullivan in fundavlog in August 2006.

Types

The Crowdfunding Centre's May 2014 report identified two primary types of crowdfunding:

1. Rewards Crowdfunding: entrepreneurs pre-sell a product or service to launch a business concept without incurring debt or sacrificing equity/shares.
2. Equity Crowdfunding: the backer receives shares of a company, usually in its early stages, in exchange for the money pledged.

Rewards-based

Reward-based crowdfunding has been used for a wide range of purposes, including motion picture promotion, free software development, inventions development, scientific research, and civic projects.

For a joint study between York University, Toronto, Ontario, and Universite Lille Nord de France, in Lille, France, published on June 2, 2014, two types of reward-based crowdfunding were identified: "'Keep-it-All' (KIA) where the entrepreneurial firm sets a fundraising goal and keeps the entire amount raised regardless of whether or not they meet their goal, and 'All-or-Nothing' (AON) where the entrepreneurial firm sets a fundraising goal and keeps nothing unless the goal is achieved." The study's researchers analyzed 22,875 crowdfunding campaigns, with targets of between US$5,000 and US$200,000, and concluded: "Overall, [all-or-nothing] fundraising campaigns involved substantially larger capital goals, and were much more likely to be successful at achieving their goals." In its review of the study outcomes, the Inc.com publication explained that potential investors are more inclined to support "all-or-nothing strategy" initiatives, whereby a substandard product will not be released if the funding goal is not achieved. The Inc.com review concluded that "AON" projects typically provide more detailed information on the campaign.

There are many characteristics of rewards-based crowdfunding, also called non-equity crowdfunding, identified by research studies. In rewards-based crowdfunding, funding does not rely on location. The distance between creators and investors on Sellaband was about 3,000 miles when the platform introduced royalty sharing. The funding for these projects is distributed unevenly, with a few projects accounting for the majority of overall funding. Additionally, funding increases as a project nears its goal, encouraging what is called "herding behavior." Research also shows that friends and family account for a large, or even majority, portion of early fundraising. This capital may encourage subsequent funders to invest in the project. While funding does not depend on location, observation shows that funding is largely tied to the locations of traditional financing options. In reward-based crowdfunding, funders are often too hopeful about project returns and must revise expectations when returns are not met.

Equity

Equity crowdfunding is the collective effort of individuals to support efforts initiated by other people or organizations through the provision of finance in the form of equity. In the United States, legislation that is mentioned in the 2012 JOBS Act will allow for a wider pool of small investors with fewer restrictions following the implementation of the act.

Unlike non-equity crowdfunding, equity crowdfunding contains heightened "information asymmetries." The creator must not only produce the product for which they are raising capital but, also, create equity through the construction of a company.

Research suggests that syndicates, which involve many investors following the strategy of a single lead investor, can be effective in reducing information asymmetry and in avoiding the outcome of market failure that is associated with equity crowdfunding.

Software value token

Another kind of crowdfunding is to raise funds for a project where a digital or software-based value token is offered as a reward to funders. These value tokens may or may not exist at the time of the crowdsale, and may require substantial development effort and eventual software release before the token is live and establishes a market value. Although funds may be raised simply for the value token itself, funds raised on blockchain-based crowdfunding can also represent equity, bonds or even "market-maker seats of governance for the entity being funded.

Examples of such crowdsales are Augur decentralized, distributed prediction market software which raised US$4 million from more than 3500 participants Digix/DigixDAO, and "The DAO."

Debt-based

See also: Peer-to-peer lending

Debt-based crowdfunding (also known as "peer to peer", "P2P", "marketplace lending", or "crowdlending") arose with the founding of Zopa in the UK in 2005 and in the US in 2006, with the launches of Lending Club and Prosper.com.

Borrowers apply online, generally for free, and their application is reviewed and verified by an automated system, which also determines the borrower's credit risk and interest rate. Investors buy securities in a fund which makes the loans to individual borrowers or bundles of borrowers. Investors make money from interest on the unsecured loans; the system operators make money by taking a percentage of the loan and a loan servicing fee.

In 2009, institutional investors entered the P2P lending arena; for example in 2013 Google invested $125 million in Lending Club.

In 2014 in the US, P2P lending totalled about $5B. In 2014 in the UK, P2P platforms lent businesses £749m, a growth of 250% from 2012 to 2014, and lent retail customers £547m, a growth of 108% from 2012 to 2014. In both countries, in 2014 about 75% of all the money transferred through crowdfunding went through P2P platforms. Lending Club went public in December 2014 at a valuation of around $9 billion.

Litigation

Litigation crowdfunding allows plaintiffs or defendants to reach out to hundreds of their peers simultaneously in a semi-private and confidential manner in order to obtain funding, either seeking donations or providing a reward in return for funding. It also allows investors to purchase a stake in a claim they have funded, which may allow them to get back more than their investment if the case succeeds (the reward is based on the compensation received by the litigant at the end of his or her case, known as a contingent fee in the United States, a success fee in the United Kingdom, or a pactum de quota litis in many civil law systems).

Donation-based

Charity donation-based crowdfunding is the collective effort of individuals to help charitable causes.

A form of charity crowdfunding is civic crowdfunding, in which funds are raised to enhance public life and space.

Role of the crowd

The inputs of the individuals in the crowd trigger the crowdfunding process and influence the ultimate value of the offerings or outcomes of the process. Each individual acts as an agent of the offering, selecting and promoting the projects in which they believe. They will sometimes play a donor role oriented towards providing help on social projects. In some cases they will become shareholders and contribute to the development and growth of the offering. Individuals disseminate information about projects they support in their online communities, generating further support (promoters).

Motivation for consumer participation stems from the feeling of being at least partly responsible for the success of others’ initiatives (desire for patronage), striving to be a part of a communal social initiative (desire for social participation), and seeking a payoff from monetary contributions (desire for investment).

Additionally, individuals participate in crowdfunding to see new and innovative products before the public. Early access often allows funders to participate more directly in the development of the product. Crowdfunding is also particularly attractive to funders who are family and friends of a creator. It helps to mediate the terms of their financial agreement and manage each group’s expectations for the project.

An individual who takes part in crowdfunding initiatives tends to reveal several distinct traits: innovative orientation, which stimulates the desire to try new modes of interacting with firms and other consumers; social identification with the content, cause or project selected for funding, which sparks the desire to be a part of the initiative; (monetary) exploitation, which motivates the individual to participate by expecting a payoff.

Crowdfunding platforms are motivated to generate income by drawing worthwhile projects and generous funders. These sites also seek widespread public attention for their projects and platform.

Crowdfunding websites helped companies and individuals worldwide raise US$89 million from members of the public in 2010, US$1.47 billion in 2011 and US$2.66 billion in 2012—US$1.6 billion of the 2012 amount was raised in North America. In 2012 more than one million individual campaigns were established globally and the industry was projected to grow to US$5.1 billion in 2013. and to reach US$1 trillion in 2025.

A May 2014 report, released by the United Kingdom-based The Crowdfunding Centre and titled "The State of the Crowdfunding Nation", presented data showing that during the month of March 2014, more than US$60,000 dollars were raised on an hourly basis via global crowdfunding initiatives. Also during this period, 442 crowdfunding campaigns were launched globally on a daily basis.

Crowdfunding platforms

Further information: Comparison of crowd funding services

As of 2012, there were over 450 crowdfunding platforms. Project creators need to exercise their own due diligence in order to understand which platform is the best to use depending on the type of project that they want to launch. There are fundamental differences in the services provided by many crowdfunding platforms.

For instance, CrowdCube and Seedrs are internet platforms which enable small companies to issue shares over the internet and receive small investments from registered users in return. While CrowdCube is meant for users to invest small amounts and acquire shares directly in start-up companies, Seedrs on the other hand pools the funds to invest in new businesses, as a nominated agent.

Curated crowdfunding platforms serve as "network orchestrators" by curating the offerings that are allowed on the platform. They create the necessary organizational systems and conditions for resource integration among other players to take place.

Relational mediators act as an intermediary between supply and demand. They replace traditional intermediaries (such as traditional record companies, venture capitalists). These platforms link new artists, designers, project initiators with committed supporters who believe in the persons behind the projects strongly enough to provide monetary support.

Growth engines focus on the strong inclusion of investors. They dis-intermediate by eliminating the activity of a service provider previously involved in the network. The platforms that use crowdfunding to seek stakes from a community of high-net-worth private investors and match them directly with project initiators.

Significant campaigns

Early campaigns

Electric Eel Shock, a Japanese rock band in 2004 raised £10,000 from 100 fans (the Samurai 100) by offering them a lifetime membership on the band's guestlist. Two years later, they became the fastest band to raise a US$50,000 budget on SellaBand.

Franny Armstrong later created a donation system for her feature film The Age of Stupid. Over five years, from June 2004 to June 2009 (release date), she raised £1,500,000. In December 2004, French entrepreneurs and producers Benjamin Pommeraud and Guillaume Colboc, launched a public Internet donation campaign to fund their short science fiction film, Demain la Veille (Waiting for Yesterday). Within a month, they managed to raise €17,000 online, allowing them to shoot their film.

Highest grossing campaigns

The highest reported funding by a crowdfunded project to date is Star Citizen, an online space trading and combat video game being developed by Chris Roberts and Cloud Imperium Games, which—as of 7 April 2016—claimed to have raised over USD$111,600,000, beating the previous record of $10,266,844 set by Pebble Watch. The Watch was created by Eric Migicovsky and allows its wearers to connect to their mobile phones. Migicovsky raised $375,000 through angel investing before starting a Kickstarter campaign on April 11, 2012. The campaign set a $100,000 goal and vowed to deliver a watch for every investment over a certain amount. The Pebble Watch campaign raised over $10 million in 37 days. However, Migicovsky was not able to deliver the watches for over a year after the campaign’s close.

The Glowforge '3D laser printer' claimed $27.9 million in preorder sales for its own crowdfunding program in November 2015, breaking the record for the most crowdfunded sales in 30 days.

Kickstarter campaigns

On April 17, 2014, the Guardian media outlet published a list of "20 of the most significant projects" launched on the Kickstarter platform prior to the date of publication:

• Musician Amanda Palmer raised US$1.2 million from 24,883 backers in June 2012 to make a new album and art book.
• American Hans Fex raised US$1,226,811 from 5,030 backers in March 2014 for his "Mini Museum" project that he describes on his Kickstarter page:

For the past 35 years I have collected amazing specimens ... I then carefully break those specimens down into smaller pieces, embed them in acrylic ... Each mini museum is a handcrafted, individually numbered limited edition ... The majority of these specimens were acquired directly from contacting specialists recommended to me by museum curators, research scientists and university historians.

• The "Coolest Cooler" raised a total of $13,285,226 from 62,642 backers. The cooler features a blender, waterproof Bluetooth speakers and an LED light.
• Writer Rob Thomas raised $5.7 million from 91,585 backers in April 2013 to create a feature film version of the defunct television series Veronica Mars. The nine award levels were initially available to backers in 21 countries, including Brazil, Canada, Finland and Germany. Lead actress Kristen Bell explained on the launch date of the project: "i promise if we hit our goal, we will make the sleuthiest, snarkiest, it’s-all-fun-and-games-‘til-one-of-you-gets-my-foot-up-your-ass movie we possibly can."
• Actor, writer and director Zach Braff raised US$3.1 million from 46,520 backers in May 2013 to create the feature film Wish I Was Here, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Braff's campaign was financially complemented by Worldview Entertainment.
• Filmmaker Spike Lee raised US$1.4 million from 6,421 backers in August 2013 to produce Da Sweet Blood of Jesus. The film was released on June 22, 2014 at the American Black Film Festival as the closing film, and released in theaters and on VOD on February 13, 2015, by Gravitas Ventures.
• YouTube celebrity Freddie Wong, who owns the company RocketJump, raised US$808,000 to produce the second series of the Web-based series Video Game High School. In February 2013, 10,613 backers committed funds to the project following the series' first season, which was also funded on Kickstarter.
• Performance artist Marina Abramovic raised US$661,000 from 4,765 backers in August 2013 after paying US$950,000 to buy a building that would house the "Marina Abramovic Institute". The building, as well as a corresponding organization, was foremost to the campaign, as Abramovic seeks to feature and maintain "long durational work, including that of performance art, dance, theatre, film, music, opera, and other forms that may develop in the future".
• The Kano technology company raised US$1.5 million from 13,387 backers in December 2013 to create a "computer and coding kit for all ages." In June 2014, Kano will ship a case, a keyboard, a speaker, a wireless server, and software that encourages children to learn the "Kano Blocks" coding language, a set of computer programming skills.
• The Flint and Tinder company raised US$1.1 million from 9,226 backers in April 2013 for its "10-Year Hoodie" hooded sweatshirt that consists of 100% cotton and is made in the U.S. The company explains on its website: "Companies have systematically lowered your expectations to the point where it's hard to know what to expect anymore. But while they're busy off-shoring, out-sourcing and generally making things as cheaply and quickly as possible. It ends here." According to Flint and Tinder, one million units of the product have been sold.
• Zack Brown raised US$55,000 from over 6900 backers in September 2014 to make a bowl of potato salad. Noteworthy is that his initial goal was only $10, but his campaign went viral and got a lot of attention. Brown ended up throwing a potato salad party with over 3,000 pounds of potatoes.

Controversy

Although musician Palmer raised over one million dollars through the Kickstarter crowdfunding process, she received criticism afterwards, some of which was published in prominent media outlets. Writing for the New Yorker, Joshua Clover initially focused upon issues specific to Palmer, but then broadened the scope of his examination to include financial conduct in the Internet era. ("you can’t spell Internet without intern.") According to Clover, Palmer initially invited local musicians to play on stage with her and her band on the stops of her U.S. tour, but offered to "feed you beer, hug/high-five you up and down (pick your poison), give you merch, and thank you mightily," instead of monetary compensation, as the money raised on Kickstarter was allocated to the production of the next studio album—in accordance with the campaign—as well as other financial commitments. This decision was then overturned a week later, as Palmer explained on her blog:

My management team tweaked and reconfigured financials, pulling money from this and that other budget (mostly video) and moving it to the tour budget. All of the money we took out of those budgets is going to the crowd-sourced musicians fund. We are going to pay the volunteer musicians every night ... We're also retroactively sending a payment to the folks who've already played with us.

Clover also made reference to the British political situation at the time, writing "that even newly minted haves, like Amanda Palmer, really need to treat have-nots, such as local musicians, a whole lot better." In a September 12, 2012 New York Times article, American Federation of Musicians President Raymond M. Hair Jr. explained, "If there's a need for the musician to be on the stage, then there ought to be compensation for it." The following day, prominent sound engineer and musician Steve Albini was also vocal and, after initially referring to Palmer as an "idiot," apologized, writing that he had not met her or heard her music. Following his apology, in which he admits "it's my fault," Albini asserted: "It should be obvious also that having gotten over a million dollars from such an effort that it is just plain rude to ask for further indulgences from your audience, like playing in your backing band for free."

Controversy arose in the crowdfunding sector in May 2014 when an adult entertainer was blocked by platform GiveForward. Following an allergy reaction, Eden Alexander required intensive medical treatment, but doctors, aware of her occupation, associated her health issue with drug use and didn't provide the necessary care to a sufficient extent; as a consequence, Alexander's condition worsened. Alexander then launched a GiveForward crowdfunding campaign to cover her medical bills, but the campaign was removed from the platform after a social media exchange, whereby a potential donor requested nude pictures as reciprocation and Alexander agreed to the offer—this was noticed within a brief time frame and WePay, the payment service used by GiveForward, deemed the negotiation a violation of WePay's terms of service (TOS), considering it the offer of "Adult or adult-related services ... Adult or adult-related content ... and Obscene or pornographic items." Alexander restarted her crowdfunding campaign by using the services of Tilt.com. The campaign ended on June 13, 2014 with $10,550 raised.

Following the Alexander incident of May 2014, WePay CEO Bill Clerico wrote an explanation of their TOS in relation to adult services to the TechCrunch media outlet:

WePay faces tremendous scrutiny from its partners & card networks around the enforcement of policy, especially when it comes to adult content. We must enforce these policies or we face hefty fines or the risk of shutdown for the many hundreds of thousands of merchants on our service. We’re incredibly sorry that these policies added to the difficulties that Eden is facing. We offered to help her setup a new campaign that complied with our policies, but I believe that her friends chose to work with another company instead. We continue to stand by to help if Eden would like to work with us further, and we are reviewing both our Terms of Service & account shutdown process to see how we can avoid situations like this in the future.

Clerico further stated that such practice is "a relatively common requirement in the industry" and assured the TechCrunch writer that WePay agreed to cease Alexander's campaign "because we are contractually required to."

Crowdfunding applications

Crowdfunding is being explored as a potential funding mechanism for creative work such as blogging and journalism, music, independent film, and for funding startup companies. Community music labels are usually for-profit organizations where "fans assume the traditional financier role of a record label for artists they believe in by funding the recording process".

Since pioneering crowdfunding in the film industry, Spanner Films has published a "how to" guide. A Financialist article published in mid-September 2013 stated that "the niche for crowdfunding exists in financing films with budgets in the [US]$1 to $10 million range" and crowdfunding campaigns are "much more likely to be successful if they tap into a significant pre-existing fan base and fulfill an existing gap in the market." Innovative new platforms, such as RocketHub, have emerged that combine traditional funding for creative work with branded crowdsourcing—helping artists and entrepreneurs unite with brands "without the need for a middle man."

Philanthropy and civic projects

A variety of crowdfunding platforms have emerged to allow ordinary web users to support specific philanthropic projects without the need for large amounts of money.

GlobalGiving allows individuals to browse through a selection of small projects proposed by nonprofit organizations worldwide, donating funds to projects of their choice. Microcredit crowdfunding platforms such as Kiva (organization) and Wokai facilitate crowdfunding of loans managed by microcredit organizations in developing countries.

The US-based nonprofit Zidisha offers a new twist on these themes, applying a direct person-to-person lending model to microcredit lending for low-income small business owners in developing countries. Zidisha borrowers who pass a background check may post microloan applications directly on the Zidisha website, specifying proposed credit terms and interest rates. Individual web users in the US and Europe can lend as little as one US dollar, and Zidisha's crowdfunding platform allows lenders and borrowers to engage in direct dialogue. Repaid principal and interest is returned to the lenders, who may withdraw the cash or use it to fund new loans.

DonorsChoose.org, founded in 2000, allows public school teachers in the United States to request materials for their classrooms. Individuals can lend money to teacher-proposed projects, and the organization fulfills and delivers supplies to schools. There are also a number of own-branded university crowdfunding websites, which enable students and staff to create projects and receive funding from alumni of the university or the general public.

Several dedicated civic crowdfunding platforms have emerged in the US and the UK, some of which have led to the first direct involvement of governments in crowdfunding. Similarly, dedicated Humanitarian Crowdfunding initiatives are emerging, involving humanitarian organizations, volunteers and supports in solving and modeling how to build innovative crowdfunding solutions for the humanitarian community.

Real estate crowdfunding

Real estate crowdfunding is the online pooling of capital from investors to fund mortgages secured by real estate, such as "fix and flip" redevelopment of distressed or abandoned properties, and equity for commercial and residential projects, acquisition of pools of distressed mortgages, home buyer down payments and similar real estate related outlets. Investment, via specialised online platforms, is generally completed under Title II of the JOBS Act and is limited to accredited investors. The platforms offer low minimum investments, often $100 – $10,000. There are over 75 real estate crowdfunding platforms in the United States.

The growth of real estate crowdfunding is a global tendency. During 2014 and 2015, more than 150 platforms have been created throughout the world, such as in China, Middle-East, or France. In Europe, some compare this growing industry to that of e-commerce ten years ago.

Intellectual property exposure

One of the challenges of posting new ideas on crowdfunding sites is there may be little or no intellectual property (IP) protection provided by the sites themselves. Once an idea is posted, it can be copied. As Slava Rubin, founder of IndieGoGo said: "We get asked that all the time, ‘How do you protect me from someone stealing my idea?’ We’re not liable for any of that stuff." Inventor advocates, such as Simon Brown, founder of the UK-based United Innovation Association, counsel that ideas can be protected on crowdfunding sites through early filing of patent applications, use of copyright and trademark protection as well as a new form of idea protection supported by the World Intellectual Property Organization called Creative Barcode.

Benefits and risks

Benefits for the creator

Crowdfunding campaigns provide producers with a number of benefits, beyond the strict financial gains. The following are non financial benefits of crowdfunding.

• Profile – a compelling project can raise a producer's profile and provide a boost to their reputation.
• Marketing – project initiators can show there is an audience and market for their project. In the case of an unsuccessful campaign, it provides good market feedback.
• Audience engagement – crowd funding creates a forum where project initiators can engage with their audiences. Audience can engage in the production process by following progress through updates from the creators and sharing feedback via comment features on the project's crowdfunding page.
• Feedback – offering pre-release access to content or the opportunity to beta-test content to project backers as a part of the funding incentives provides the project initiators with instant access to good market testing feedback.

There are also financial benefits to the creator. For one, crowdfunding allows creators to attain low-cost capital. Traditionally, a creator would need to look to "personal savings, home equity loans, personal credit cards, friends and family members, angel investors, and venture capitalists." With crowdfunding, creators can find funders from around the world, sell both their product and equity, and benefit from increased information flow. Additionally, crowdfunding that supports pre-buying allows creators to obtain early feedback on the product.

Proponents of the crowdfunding approach argue that it allows good ideas which do not fit the pattern required by conventional financiers to break through and attract cash through the wisdom of the crowd. If it does achieve "traction" in this way, not only can the enterprise secure seed funding to begin its project, but it may also secure evidence of backing from potential customers and benefit from word of mouth promotion in order to reach the fundraising goal. Another potential positive effect is the propensity of groups to "produce an accurate aggregate prediction" about market outcomes as identified by author James Surowiecki in his book The Wisdom of Crowds, thereby placing financial backing behind ventures likely to succeed.

Proponents also identify a potential outcome of crowdfunding as an exponential increase in available venture capital. One report claims that If every American family gave one percent of their investable assets to crowdfunding, $300 billion (a 10X increase) would come into venture capital. Proponents also cite that a benefit for companies receiving crowdfunding support is that they retain control of their operations, as voting rights are not conveyed along with ownership when crowdfunding.

As part of his response to the Amanda Palmer Kickstarter controversy, Albini expressed his supportive views of crowdfunding for musicians, explaining: "I've said many times that I think they're part of the new way bands and their audience interact and they can be a fantastic resource, enabling bands to do things essentially in cooperation with their audience." Albini described the concept of crowdfunding as "pretty amazing."

Risks and barriers for the creator

Crowdfunding also comes with a number of potential risks or barriers. For the creator, as well as the investor, studies show that crowdfunding contains "high levels of risk, uncertainty, and information asymmetry."

• Reputation – failure to meet campaign goals or to generate interest results in a public failure. Reaching financial goals and successfully gathering substantial public support but being unable to deliver on a project for some reason can severely negatively impact one's reputation.
• IP protection – many Interactive Digital Media developers and content producers are reluctant to publicly announce the details of a project before production due to concerns about idea theft and protecting their IP from plagiarism. Creators who engage in crowdfunding are required to release their product to the public in early stages of funding and development, exposing themselves to the risk of copy by competitors.
• Donor exhaustion – there is a risk that if the same network of supporters is reached out to multiple times, that network will eventually cease to supply necessary support.
• Public fear of abuse – concern among supporters that without a regulatory framework, the likelihood of a scam or an abuse of funds is high. The concern may become a barrier to public engagement.

For crowdfunding of equity stock purchases, there is some research in social psychology that indicates that, like in all investments, people don't always do their due diligence to determine if it's a sound investment before investing, which leads to making investment decisions based on emotion rather than financial logic.

By using crowdfunding, creators also forgo potential support and value that a single angel investor or venture capitalist might offer. Likewise, crowdfunding requires that creators manage their investors. This can be time consuming and financially burdensome as the number of investors in the crowd rises.

Crowdfunding draws a crowd: investors and other interested observers who follow the progress, or lack of progress, of a project. Sometimes it proves easier to raise the money for a project than to make the project a success. Managing communications with a large number of possibly disappointed investors and supporters can be a substantial, and potentially diverting, task.

Some of the most popular fundraisings are for commercial companies which use the process to reach customers and at the same time market their products and services. This favors companies like microbreweries and specialist restaurants – in effect creating a "club" of people who are customers as well as investors. In the USA in 2015 new rules from the SEC to regulate equity crowdfunding will mean that larger businesses with more than 500 investors and more than $25 million in assets will have to file reports like a public company. The Wall Street Journal commented "It is all the pain of an IPO without the benefits of the IPO." These two trends may mean crowdfunding is most suited to small consumer facing companies rather than tech start ups

See also

• Angel investor
• Assurance contract
• Business models for open-source software
• Comparison of crowd funding services
• Crowd funding in video games
• Crowdsourcing
• Fan-funded music
• List of highest funded crowdfunding projects
• List of highest funded equity crowdfunding projects
• Microcredit
• Microfinance
• One Spark
• Threshold pledge system

Further reading

Studies and Papers

• Crowdfunding and Civic Society in Europe: A Profitable Partnership? Open Citizenship, vol. 4, no. 1. (2013).
• Dynamics of Crowdfunding: Determinants of Success and Failure by Ethan Mollick, examines what causes individual projects to succeed or fail.
• An Empirical Examination of the Antecedents and Consequences of Contribution Patterns in Crowd-funded Markets examines the patterns of crowdfunding in journalism
• Is There an eBay for Ideas? European Management Review, 2011
• Herding Behavior as a Network Externality, Proceedings of the International Conference on Information Systems, Shanghai, December 2011
• The Geography of Crowdfunding, NET Institute Working Paper No. 10-08, Oct 2010
• Ex Ante Crowdfunding and the Recording Industry: A Model for the U.S.?
• Crowdfunding and the Federal Securities Laws by C. Steven Bradford

Press

• The Kapipalist Manifesto, Principles of Crowdfunding, February 2010
• The micro-price of micropatronage, The Economist, September 27, 2010
• Putting your money where your mouse is, The Economist, September 2, 2010
• Cash-strapped entrepreneurs get creative in BBC News
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