Beyond Financials: Exploring the Additional Benefits of Crowdfunding for the Launch of a Successful Venture

Crowdfunding (CF) is increasingly adopted as a strategy to fund innovative projects and start-ups using the Internet. Although the advantages of CF overcome financial aspects, an integrative model depicting all the categories of benefits is yet to be introduced in literature. Based on a systematic review of entrepreneurship and CF-specific literature, the article elaborates and presents an integrative model of benefits for the project, the start-up and the creator in areas including, but not limited to, viability, cost reduction, market research, product design, and customer relationships. The model was refined and validated surveying experts and campaign creators, and analyzing successful cases of CF campaigns. The value of the article is both at theory level, with a comprehensive and cross-disciplinary classification of benefits, and at practitioner level, with a checklist and insights for individuals involved into the design and launch of attractive business ventures or CF platforms.