Equity crowdfunding for university spin-offs: Unveiling the motivations, benefits, and risks related to its adoption

Equity crowdfunding (ECF) has spread rapidly worldwide, however its use by university spin-offs (USOs) along with scholarly attention to it, is still extremely limite. In this qualitative study, we examine the views of founders of the few USOs that have used ECF in the Italian market and unveil their motivation for bypassing traditional funding models and the related benefits and risks. USOs have mixed motivations in pursuing ECF (testing the market, involving new people, overcoming limited public/private supports or funds, attractiveness to traditional investors, risky forecasts); at the same time there are significant benefits (crowd participation, strategic resources, legitimacy for the valorization/exploitation of research results and knowledge transfer mechanisms) and underlying risks (management of investors and their lack of scientific culture, data use, bureaucracy, uncertainty related to outputs/technologies). This study contributes to the literature on crowdfunding and USOs and has implications for the strategic decisions of founders, universities, policymakers, governments.