Using data on Kickstarter campaigns and venture capital investments from 2009–2015, we explored whether crowdfunding expanded access to financial capital, in the sense of supporting innovation in more geographically diverse regions than venture capital. Over this period, crowdfunding has supported projects in many regions that have attracted little or no venture capital. Within regions, moreover, the evidence suggests that successful crowdfunding campaigns attract future venture capital investments and that they have been doing so at an increasing rate. Crowdfunding therefore appears to be expanding access to capital to a larger pool of innovators.
Lee Fleming and Olav Sorenson
This introduction to the special issue on crowdfunding begins by providing some information about the history and nature of the phenomenon. It then summarizes some of the key advantages and disadvantages of crowdfunding for entrepreneurs and for investors, introducing the various articles in the issue that explore these topics in greater depth. It concludes with some speculations regarding the possible future of the industry and its effects on entrepreneurship, innovation, and inequality.
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We convened a group of experts to discuss their thoughts about the current state of crowdfunding, its future, important emerging trends in the field, and the opportunities and challenges facing investors and entrepreneurs in the space. Across the board, our experts highlighted the importance of crowdfunding as a means for mobilizing resources. They also maintained that crowdfunding has already emerged as an important force in global finance, which appears here to stay, but one where we have only begun to see the ways in which it will transform the financial sector.
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