Financing agri-food business in the Mediterranean area through crowdfunding: Do environmental issues matter?

Abstract

Global expectations are that crowdfunding will be able to unleash the great potential for contributing to sustainable development by providing financial resources for environmentally and socially oriented ven-tures. The purpose of this paper is to estimate which factors, including the orientation to sustainability, foster the likelihood of crowdfunding success in agri-food campaigns. Using a sample of crowdfunding campaigns launched in the Kickstarter platform, this paper employs a binary logistic regression model to investigate factors that motivate investment decisions. The results demonstrate that the campaigns that are rated as sustainable show a positive, statistically relevant relation to the success. In addition, improv-ing the quality and complexity of the project, together with the realistic setting of goal increase the odds of success. In the era of innovative finance, this paper contributes to the growing literature and initiatives to promote and develop crowdfunding in the agri-food industry.