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This research study combines the theoretical teachings of revealed preferences, signal theory and weak tie theory to better understand the dynamics at work at the beginning of a campaign and to explain its success. By identifying the revealed preferences of early backers through their common past contributions, we characterize as strong or weak the nature of the complex preference ties between them. We build networks of the contributions made by the individuals identified as early backers to 9,425 campaigns run on the Ulule platform between July 2010 and September 2014. The results of this study underline the importance of the presence of strong preference ties between early backers and other platform users for the success of campaigns. They also corroborate the theory of the strength of weak ties. Later in the campaign, the intervention of backers with less specific preferences, in the position of intermediaries, positively influences the future outcome by accelerating the fundraising speed at the beginning of the campaign.

Based on signaling theory, we explore the relationship between equity crowdfunding (ECF) financing and firm bankruptcy. We compare data from 317 ECF campaigns carried out by 277 French firms between 2010 and 2018 with 304 investment rounds conducted by 220 French firms financed by venture capitalists (VCs). Compared to firms financed by VCs, there is a positive relationship between ECF-funded firms and their probability of bankruptcy. Nevertheless, the characteristics of ECF campaigns (running several campaigns and the participation of many investors) are negatively correlated with their probability of bankruptcy. Thus, our results show that the characteristics of ECF campaigns are signals that reduce the identified moral hazard problem of ECF-funded firms.

We thought that, in order to introduce “The International Research Handbook of Crowdfunding”, an overview or, more precisely, a cartography of the academic literature on crowdfunding would help position this highly developing funding mode. Studied data come from the Business source complete database. Data were collected from beginning of 2011 (first appearance of published academic articles on crowdfunding) till end of January 2015.

The purpose of this paper was to decipher the contradictions and the ambiguities of crowdfunding as a term and as a practice to reveal the deeper significance of its underlying Zeitgeist.Three steps were followed. In the first one, the authors underline the ambiguities of crowd as a concept in its traditional meaning as well as in the realities, it may depict when referring to connected people. Thereafter, the many practices of crowdfunding with the apparent univocity of this term were confronted. These analyses led the authors to consider crowdfunding as ideology: an incantatory use of crowd can conceal an effective profit-making process, as well as a new way to unblock a stalling social elevator. As per the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first one to try to conceptualize the social roots of crowdfunding and to analyze its deeper significance, as complementary to an already developed “how-to-do-it” literature. It is worth confronting this piece of reflexivity with the emerging literature on the assessment of specific crowdfunding operations.