The Crowdpower 2.0 Concept: An Integrated Approach to Innovation That Goes Beyond Crowdfunding

Many entrepreneurs or small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are really dynamic, highly innovative and willing to bear the risk of innovative projects. However, a bottleneck for realising such projects is often both the lack of support from relevant know-how (could be solved by crowdsourcing), and risk capital (could be provided by crowdfunding). After introducing some aspects of innovation the crowdpower 2.0 concept will be explained, and insights and best practices of practical experience in Austria of a crowdsourcing and a crowdfunding platform will be presented. The overall aim of the crowdpower 2.0 concept is to foster the evolution of a new ecosystem for innovative SMEs and entrepreneurs by combining open innovation approaches with the latest crowd technologies.