Assessing the Value of Ventures: Crowd Investors vs. Sophisticated Investors

Abstract

Recent regulatory approaches in crowdfunding democratize capital markets. Adverse wealth effects may arise because of information asymmetry. Firoozi et al. (2017) argue that crowdfunding has wealth-reducing effects on crowd investors because they systematically assign less value to good ventures, and more to bad ventures. This paper aims to take a more differentiated perspective by incorporating two dimensions of uncertainty determining ventures’ value. It further takes into account that different investor types learn different information. This yields new findings concerning the assessment of venture value by crowd investors and sophisticated investors. Crowd investors’ may be able to better assess venture value, even though they have inferior information processing skills. This may enable crowd investors to make better investment decisions, compared to sophisticated investors.