The role of human capital in Italian equity crowdfunding campaigns

Abstract

Crowdfunding has become an established means for new ventures in search for funding and it has received increased attention from scholars and policy makers. One of the most relevant aspects of crowdfunding is to understand the factors associated with the success of a campaign. This paper addresses the issue with a novel dataset of 89 Italian campaigns. Three indicators of campaign success (funds received, funds as a share of target, and number of investors) are estimated as a function of different dimensions of human capital (team size, education, and work experience). We find that campaign success is correlated to team size, the share of members with very high education (i.e. PhD), and the share of members with business education. We also find a non-linear relation with team size, and a significant relationship with the diversification of the team's education. Our study contributes to a recent body of empirical studies on the determinants of the success of an equity crowdfunding campaign by confirming previous findings with a novel dataset and by providing new evidence on the relevance of signals of the founding team quality (e.g. diversity of education) and increasing return of funding to team size.