Crowdfunding

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Crowdfunding [kɹaʊdˌfʌndiŋ] (of English crowd for (human) quantity ', and funding for, financing'), in German also swarm financing or group financing , is a type of financing . With this method of fundraising projects , products , the implementation of business ideas and many other things can be supplied with equity or funds similar to equity, in Germany mostly in the form of profit-sharing loans or silent participations . A company financed in this way and its process are also referred to as an action . Your financiers are a large number of people - usually Internet users , since crowdfunding is usually called for on the World Wide Web .

history

term

Historically, crowdfunding is a relatively new term that has only been used increasingly for a few years. The term crowdsourcing was coined by Jeff Howe in a Wired article. A few years later he also developed the first approaches for a definition of the term crowdfunding, based on crowdsourcing.

The word is made up of the English words crowd 'quantity, crowd' and funding 'financing'. As Germanization occasionally swarm financing used. In March 2013 the linguist Anatol Stefanowitsch dealt with the origin of this Germanization in the language log in the articles And the Winner is: Crowdfunding! and language smugglers on Wikipedia? His research revealed that this term had its origin in an entry made on March 23, 2011 in the article Crowdfunding on the German-language Wikipedia .

There are four types of crowdfunding:

  • Donation-based crowdfunding or donation-based crowdfunding (crowd donation or donation- based crowdfunding): Donation without material or financial consideration
  • Classic crowdfunding or rewarding crowdfunding (reward-based crowdfunding or crowd support, divided into crowdfunding and pre-selling): Supporters receive a non-financial thank you (e.g. a copy of the project result)
  • Lending crowdfunding ( Lending -Based Crowdfunding or Crowd Lending ): Crowd lends money to project initiators, which is later repaid
  • Investing crowdfunding (called equity- based crowdfunding or crowd investing ): Supporters receive shares in the project

Crowdfunding has so far been seen more as a variant for financing niche projects; Equity crowdfunding is a way of raising funds for companies or real estate. Participations in companies can be acquired here. These investments certify a right to a share in the company's profits and often also in the sales proceeds and can be sold. In crowdinvesting, similar to crowdfunding, the risk is to be distributed among numerous investors in small amounts; In the case of financing through business angels or venture capital , however, the capital is usually raised by a few.

English speaking area

Historical crowdfunding can already be found in the 19th century. So was z. B. the base for the erection of the Statue of Liberty made possible by 160,000 individual donations.

In October 2003, the musician and producer Brian Camelio started the Internet platform ArtistShare in response to the developments in piracy and the efforts of the music industry for digital rights management. The website allowed musicians to get the money to produce an album before it was released. When SellaBand started in Europe in August 2006, the aim was to reach 50,000 US dollars each for musicians and bands with the help of so-called believers in order to produce an album. On November 2nd, 2006, the band Nemesea had 528 supporters and was able to record their album "In Control" . In the past four years another 50 bands (as of September 2010) have made it into the recording studio at Sellaband.

In 2008 Indiegogo was founded. The crowdfunding platform Kickstarter.com was founded in the USA in 2009 . There is no profit sharing with Kickstarter. The initiators usually try to convince of themselves or the project with a video. Following the same model are u. a. More crowdfunding platforms went online with RocketHub.

At the beginning of 2010, an established band, Public Enemy , used such a crowdfunding platform to have their next album financed together with fans and supporters. The band itself describes on its website: "In our six months on SellaBand, we are proud to have broken ground into a new paradigm of music financing and to have learned so much about the fan funding model with our fans." () In October In 2010, the deal stood at 91% of $ 75,000. The actual target of $ 250,000 was revised down when the platform filed for bankruptcy in February 2010. Since the bankruptcy, the former Dutch company has continued to operate as a GmbH with its headquarters in Munich.

In June 2010, the software project Diaspora received media attention: four students needed $ 10,000 to develop an Internet platform. With the platform, the fight was declared on Facebook and it was announced that it would develop a counterpart that would take better precautions in the area of ​​data protection and always save the data of its users decentrally on the user's own computer. This was hugely popular among the population, who jointly over-financed the project with US $ 200,641. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was among the 6,479 donors . In an interview with Wired magazine, Zuckerberg said: “I donated. I think it is a cool idea. ” 'I made a donation. I think it's a cool idea. '

Mayday US is a Super-PAC in the USA, which aims to abolish all Super-PACs. The goal is to elect MPs to Congress who oppose the corrupting influence of money in politics and want to abolish super-PACs. The project is endowed with more than 7.9 million dollars and was funded by more than 55,300 donors through crowdfunding (as of August 2014). The initiator of the PAC is Harvard Professor Lawrence Lessig .

With the signing of the JOBS Act ( Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act ) in the USA by President Barack Obama , a legal basis was created.

Germany

For the financing of the road movie Hatschi Madame - Sorry Monsieur , which started in 2004, a place in the credits could be acquired by purchasing an entrance ticket. Crowdfunding received some media attention when the film Hotel Desire was funded by donations of 175,000 euros. The Cologne-based company Brainpool started the largest crowdfunding project to date in the film sector in Germany in December 2011. The company wanted to collect one million euros by March 2012 for the planned film for the Stromberg TV series . After two days the income was already over 150,000 euros; The plan sum was reached within a week.

In addition to national platforms, there are also regional crowdfunding initiatives. These focus primarily on projects for start-ups from the respective region.

The amendment to the Small Investor Protection Act of July 9, 2015 ( Federal Law Gazette 2015 I p. 1114 ) has also reorganized crowdinvesting in Germany.

Switzerland

There are around 40 national crowdfunding platforms in Switzerland that cover crowd donation, crowd support, crowd lending and crowd investing.

“Cashare” was launched as the first platform in 2008 with a focus on crowdlending. The largest platform (as of 2016) is "wemakeit", which offers all kinds of projects. In addition, other platforms have positioned themselves in niches such as “I believe in you” for sports projects, “letshelp” for aid projects at home and abroad, “swisspeers” for SME financing and “Lokalhelden.ch” for clubs, organizations and private individuals with charitable projects. The latter portal is made available free of charge. In Switzerland, 374.5 million CHF were brokered via crowdfunding in 2017, the largest part falling into the crowdlending category (186.7 million CHF).

Basics

A common feature of crowdfunding is that the funds are earmarked for a specific action. A promotion is characterized by a minimum amount of capital that must be financed by the mass before the promotion starts. In relation to the minimum amount of capital, each member of the crowd (crowdfunder) only makes a small financial contribution.

The crowdfunder can receive consideration, which can take various forms (e.g. rights, money, benefits in kind). In addition, the consideration can have an ideal or altruistic value. B. the support of humanitarian projects that promise no economic return.

The communication between donors and recipients is realized via an internet platform. As a rule, the borrower publishes a largely open invitation to tender via this platform , which is aimed at all legally competent Internet users; without including or excluding possible donors. Social media , through which a large number of donors are reached, play a major role in the success of internet-based crowdfunding campaigns .

Risks

So far there is no comprehensive legal basis for crowdfunding in Germany. This is why this type of financing is known as the gray market - in contrast to the stock market , for example , for which other laws and ordinances have been passed in Germany in addition to the Stock Corporation Act. The case of repayment is also unresolved, as shown by the example of Coa Holding GmbH in Frankfurt.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Anatol Stefanowitsch: And the Winner is: Crowdfunding! . In: Sprachlog . March 4, 2013. Retrieved March 5, 2013.
  2. ↑ a b Anatol Stefanowitsch: Language smuggler in Wikipedia? . In: Sprachlog . March 5, 2013. Retrieved March 5, 2013.
  3. ↑ Crowdsourcing, LLC: Crowdfunding Industry Report: Market Trends, Composition and Crowdfunding Platforms 2012, p. 12.
  4. ↑ René S. Klein: Crowd investing monitor as of September 30, 2013. (PDF; 1.22 MB) In: fuer-gruender.de. September 30, 2013, accessed September 14, 2018 .
  5. ^ The Statue of Liberty and America's crowdfunding pioneer. In: bbc.com. April 25, 2013, accessed September 14, 2018 .
  6. ↑ Tommy Swanson: Indiegogo: A Serious Competitor to Kickstarter. (No longer available online.) In: communities.washingtontimes.com. July 18, 2012, archived from the original on July 20, 2012 ; accessed on September 14, 2018 (English).
  7. ↑ Sellaband - Public Enemy - Thank You !!! - The plan & Incentives. (No longer available online.) In: www.sellaband.com. Archived from the original on March 7, 2012 ; accessed on September 14, 2018 (English).
  8. ↑ Ryan Singel: Mark Zuckerberg: I ​​Donated to Open Source, Facebook Competitor. In: wired.com. May 28, 2010, accessed September 14, 2018 .
  9. ↑ MAYDAY.US - A national grassroots campaign to fight corruption and elect reformers. In: mayday.us. Retrieved September 14, 2018 .
  10. ↑ Die Welt August 2, 2004, p. 24
  11. ^ Anne Haeming: Film experiment "Hotel Desire": shoot porn for donation. In: Spiegel Online . October 7, 2011, accessed June 9, 2018 .
  12. ^ Bernhard Huebner: Crowdfunding: "Stromberg" instigates a revolution in film financing. (No longer available online.) In: www.ftd.de. December 16, 2011, archived from the original on January 7, 2012 ; accessed on September 14, 2018 .
  13. ↑ Stromberg - the film - be there as investors - Stromberg movie. (No longer available online.) In: www.myspass.de. Archived from the original on January 5, 2012 ; accessed on September 14, 2018 .
  14. ↑ "Stromberg - The Film": It is coming! - Fans invest 1 million in worldwide record time / December / 2011 / Press / Home. In: brainpool.de. December 22, 2011, accessed September 14, 2018 .
  15. ↑ Small investor protection: New law in force. In: bafin.de. July 10, 2015, accessed September 14, 2018 .
  16. ↑ a b Andreas Dietrich , Simon Amrein: Crowdfunding Monitoring Switzerland 2018 . Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts. Institute for Financial Services Zug, Lucerne 2018, ISBN 978-3-906877-31-0 ( hslu.ch [PDF; 2.7 MB ]).
  17. ↑ Michèle Ullmann: 11 Swiss crowdfunding platforms in comparison - you should know them. Retrieved May 8, 2017 .
  18. ↑ 375 million francs brokered through Swiss crowdfunding. In: tagesanzeiger.ch. May 28, 2018. Retrieved September 14, 2018 .
  19. ^ Sixt, E. (2014). Donation-based crowdfunding. In swarm economy and crowdfunding (pp. 101-111). Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden.
  20. ↑ Looking Beyond the Crisis. (PDF: 1271 kB) In: reliefweb.int. Future Humanitarian Financing, accessed September 14, 2018 .
  21. ↑ Crowdfunding for Emergencies , by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
  22. ↑ Golem.de: Revolution Software: Experience of a Kickstarter. Retrieved June 25, 2019 .
  23. ↑ https://www.bafin.de/SharedDocs/Veroeffnahmungen/DE/Fachartikel/2014/fa_bj_1406_crowdfunding.html
  24. ↑ https://www.faz.net/aktuell/rhein-main/anlageform-crowdfunding-auf-die-falsche-kueche-etzt-16854185.html