Expanding corporate finance perspectives to equity crowdfunding

In equity crowdfunding, firms raise capital online from a large pool of heterogeneous investors, thereby providing primary market opportunities similar to traditional public markets, such as initial public offerings. The development of secondary markets is instead still limited, making the post-offering perspectives of both crowdfunding investors and firms closer to private equity deals. We believe that equity crowdfunding markets provide an interesting setting where to test existing corporate finance and financial economics theories, as well as to develop new theoretical insights. Relatedly, our understanding of crowdfunding mechanisms can largely benefit from increased attention from finance scholars. This paper and special issue are an attempt in this direction.