Crowdfunding: Your e-piggie bank

Abstract

This study addresses a new way to pool financial resources through
an open call on the internet – crowdfunding. Since the innovation of
general web-based crowdfunding began in 2008, crowdfunding
platforms have expanded from the small-scale to truly massive
enterprises that have seen incredible growth. This has paralleled the
crowdfunding platforms shift from a niche idea to a mainstream
funding solution. Currently, as this new industry continues to grow
and develop, it is important to evaluate its current status and recent
developments to try to find clues about the future. Crowd funding is
still a nascent concept in a country like India where every year many
entrepreneurs come up with their ideas in various fields ranging
from social cause to entertainment. Hence, objective of this study is
to explore the novel phenomenon of crowd funding and develop
deeper understanding of this topic as it has not received adequate
coverage in literature. Here an attempt was made to explain the
process of Crowdfunding and explore crowdfunding as an
alternative method of fund rising vis-a vis traditional method. Hence
project creators and platform providers were interviewed. Semi
structured interview questionnaires were used for this purpose. This
study will be helpful to aspiring entrepreneurs, researchers, teachers
and students.