Equity Crowdfunding in Real Estate Equity crowdfunding represents a relatively novel way of alternative funding for entrepreneurial initiatives. The presented paper aims at providing evidence that crowdfunding had developed into an acknowledged, sustainable adequate means of funding and its suitability for investments in commercial real estate projects. For this reason we provide (i) an overview of risks associated with equity crowdfunding from the viewpoint of entrepreneurs, of investors and of platforms, (ii) a selection of equity crowdfunding applications and its industry sectors, (iii) evidence from literature that equity crowdfunding is an acknowledged approach in research which is elaborated on in various scientific disciplines, (iv) an analysis of success factors for crowdfunding campaigns on basis of nine empirical studies, and (v) a detailed discussion of advantages and disadvantages from an investoru0027s viewpoint based on a SWOT analysis.

Pricing and advertising for rewardbased crowdfunding products in Ecommerce Abstract   This paper studies a rewardbased crowdfunding game wherein the creator first collects money through an Ecrowdfunding platform and then, if successful, invests the raised money to fund promotional activities via online retailing. We derive the creatoru0027s equilibrium decisions and the corresponding payoff and show that they are significantly influenced by the potential demand and the gap between different types of buyer valuations. In particular, with the change in potential market size from low to high, the creator will choose investing none, part or all of the crowdfunded money to improve the advertising level. Meanwhile, when the market size is small, the creator tends to set a high price; when it becomes larger, the creator prefers menu prices or a low price to guarantee the success of the crowdfunding campaign. Comparing two scenarios, one with and one without considering advertising investment, creators may never choose the low price if they cannot raise enough money for advertising; however, that situation can never arise without considering the option of advertising investment. These results provide implications for launching a successful crowdfunding campaign and product promotionadvertising in this Ecommerce era.