The role of Entrepreneurial Quality in Equity Crowdfunding success: An explorative analysis of Italian platforms.

The current era is characterized by the advent of the so-called ‘Industry 4.0’ (Lasi et al., 2014) and the spread of new technologies. Blockchain, ICOs and crowdfunding are well-known examples of these new technologies. They represent the ‘Fintech’ and – as noticed by some scholars – they are useful tools especially for young innovative companies. In particular, crowdfunding has shown a large and rapid growth worldwide since it creates certain benefits like the network support and the “crowd test”. Recent studies consider crowdfunding as social innovation practice: within dedicated platforms, founders develop social connections with the network/community of crowdfunders. The present study focuses on the Equity Crowdfunding (ECF) – i.e. “a method of financing, whereby an entrepreneur sells a specific amount of equity or bond-like shares in a company to a group of (small) investors through an open call for funding on Internet-based platforms” – and considers the Italian context, where ECF is highly developed and where most businesses are MSMEs. According to MiSE (2018), these ventures show an increasing level of digitalization and pay great attention to innovation.