Financial return crowdfunding: literature review and bibliometric analysis

Abstract

In the FinTech era, other technological enterprises different from traditional banking are offering financial services (Zalan and Toufaily Zalan et al. Contemporary Economics, 11(4), 2017). Crowdfunding is a materialization of the evolution of entrepreneurial finance, permitting the raising of funds from a crowd of investors through online platforms. Crowdfunding is a rather new phenomenon, so literature is still incipient. This research aims to study crowdfunding as a financial instrument. For this reason, we will focus specifically on crowdfunding that generates a financial return- i.e., peer-to-peer lending (P2P) and equity crowdfunding (EC). This article looks into the documents published in the Tomson Reuters Web of Science on the field of financial return crowdfunding. Conclusions are drawn in terms of relevance of this burgeoning topic and suggestions for future research are put forward.