Analysis of the Crowdinvesting Market in Germany. Motives, Chances, and Risks from a Company's Perspective

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2017 in the subject Business economics - Investment and Finance, grade: 2,1, University of applied sciences, Cologne, language: English, abstract: This thesis is based on the general problem of how and where to raise capital to achieve their defined goals. Crowdinvesting is a new method, but yet largely unexplored, possibility to do so. Especially for young and innovative companies seeking capital to kick-start their business, crowdinvesting has been labeled as a new trend. The following research focusses on the question: What are the motives, chances, and risks from a company's perspective regarding the new phenomenon of crowdinvesting? Crowdinvesting is the process where investors are approached about the financing of these young and innovative companies, but sometimes also established companies or selected projects are financed. The basic principle of crowdinvesting is that individual persons on the internet invest money in a company and in turn receive the right to participate in the success of the business. In return, the companies receive the financing amount as equity or debt capital. The thesis aims to contribute to a more detailed understanding of crowdinvesting from a theoretical and empirical perspective. Due to its innovative character, most information about crowdinvesting is at the moment based on working papers, a few specialist books, and database entries. The present thesis uses the existing literature as a core to explain the concept. To ensure a profound understanding of the topic of crowdinvesting, this thesis begins with a theoretical framework in chapter 2. The chapter describes the theory of the new institutional economics and the basics of financing, including the most common financing methods. Chapter 3 then introduces the crowd as a supporting and financing instrument for companies. In particular, the concepts of crowdsourcing, crowdfunding, and crowdinvesting are expounded and illustrated with examples. Subsequently, following the theoretical aspects, the crowdinvesting market in Germany is empirically analyzed and the financing option of crowdinvesting is critically appraised in chapter 4 to answer the research question. To conclude, the findings of the previous chapters are summarized and an outlook is given within a discussion.