Understanding The Crowd : A quantitative study on investor motivation in equity crowdfunding

Abstract: Background - Equity-based crowdfunding is rapidly emerging as a source of funding, as a way for ventures to overcome financial obstacles. It is based on a large number of investors, the crowd, who contributes with smaller investments that together helps fund the venture, where the investor in return receives equity in the venture. In order for the entrepreneur to successfully fund their ventures, it is important to understand what motivates the investors to invest. Problem: The theoretical framework Motivation in Equity-Based Crowdfunding has been developed to understand what drives the investors. However, this framework has mainly been developed on crowdsourcing and general crowdfunding, which is significantly different from equity crowdfunding. Therefore, further research has been suggested by other authors on the topic, to specifically investigate investor motivation in equity crowdfunding. Furthermore, existing research has only studied investors as one group of people and not divided them into smaller segments. Purpose: The aim of this descriptive study is to understand what motivational factors drives investors to invest in equity-based crowdfunding, and how the motivations to invest is different between the demographic characteristics within age, gender, location, income and investor experience. Method: With a deductive research approach, four hypotheses were developed based on the literature review. Using the framework Motivation in Equity-Based Crowdfunding as a basis for the research, the investor motivation was studied on 142 equity crowdfunding investors using a quantitative online survey. The results were then analyzed using frequency analysis, descriptive statistics, t-statistics and multiple regression analysis. Conclusion: Based on the findings, a revision of the framework Motivation in Equity-Based Crowdfunding have been suggested. Furthermore, it was found that investors were primarily driven by enjoyment, philanthropic and financial payoffs in their decision to invest. There were also significant differences found in investor motivation between the demographics age, gender and investor experience, whilst the location or income of the investor did not have any effect on investor motivation. Contribution: By understanding what investors are motivated by, the entrepreneurs can promote these factors in their crowdfunding campaign, which may increase their chances of getting successfully funded. Furthermore, if the entrepreneur wants to bring in a certain type of investor, they can adjust their promotion after the factors that motivates a certain demographic characteristic.