FACTORS AFFECTING CROWDFUNDING SUCCESS IN RENEWABLE ENERGY

Abstract

Crowdfunding is a feasible alternative to finance renewable energy projects.However,crowdfunding project supporters face significant challenges. We set out to examine the impact of online information on renewable energy crowd funder's investment decision. We collect data from publicly available information on Kickstarter using Python programming language to extract online information from 164 samples.We find that interaction correlates with fundraising success. Furthermore,word impact is a relatively weak signal in the crowd funder's investment decision.Our findings suggest that interaction could be used as a tool to mitigate the information asymmetry problem from crowd funders.The results of this research offer project creators a guideline when designing their crowdfunding fundraising activities.