A cross-platform analysis of the equity crowdfunding Italian context: the role of intellectual capital

Does intellectual capital positively affect the success of the equity crowdfunding campaigns? This paper answers this question using an original dataset of 191 equity crowdfunding campaigns, gathered from Italian platforms over the period 2014–2018; special attention is dedicated to patents effect, R&D and team’s education level on funding success, as they may serve as signals of unobservable quality of equity crowdfunding campaigns. Then, following literature on success factors for crowdfunding, the paper analyzes the signaling role of equity share retained by founders and by their social network size. Results suggest that intellectual capital (i.e. patents, R&D, team’s education level), amount of equity retained by projects’ founders and size of their social network have a positive and significant impact on fundraising success and are perceived as quality signals of crowdfunding campaigns by external investors.