Exploring the Spheres of Crowdfunding

This chapter reviews research and policy literatures on the spheres of crowdfunding. It identifies reward-based, donation-based, equity-based and credit-based crowdfunding with a view to collate relevant information to support crowdfunding knowledgebase and further research. As crowdfunding is a new concept in research literature, it is increasing in popularity in social media, business and research communities. Academic research in crowdfunding is limited and the subject is still evolving as a way of access to finance for seed capital, entrepreneurial projects and other early stage projects. Advanced countries in Europe and North America have recognised the relevance of crowdfunding in varying proportion from one country to another for project fundraising. However, the World Bank confirmed that developing countries are at different stages of recognition of crowdfunding in their policy framework. Although the UK financial regulator, Financial Conduct Authority, has produced a policy statement for crowdfunding and approved some service providers such as crowdfunding platforms, it is still interacting with stakeholders and providing guidance to potential entrepreneurs on the operational models. Crowdfunding is a way of raising small amounts of money from different contributors over the internet for different types of projects. There are huge management implications in the spheres of crowdfunding.