Crowdfunding: Nature, essence and conditions for the realization of innovative business projects

Aim. Formation of methodological foundations of crowdfunding, determination of conditions for realization of innovative business projects.Objectives. Clarification of terminology, functions, categories, types and features of stakeholder interaction in the process of realization of crowdfunding campaign; description of the process of realization of innovative business projects with the help of crowdfunding; analysis of foreign and Russian crowdfunding platforms, legislative base to determine the conditions of successful crowdfunding campaign of innovative business project.Methods. The research applied methods of benchmarking, comparative analysis, inductive approach to the formation of the methodological basis of crowdfunding, modeling of the process of implementation of crowdfunding campaign of investment business projects.Results. The methodological foundations of crowdfunding are presented, the functions are described, including the collection of funds, advertising and PR of the product/service produced, scaling of the business, as well as categories, types and features of stakeholder interaction in the process of realization of crowdfunding campaign. The process of realization of an innovative business project on a crowdfunding platform is divided into five stages: MVP of the innovative product, financing of the innovative project, launch of the innovative business project on the crowdfunding digital platform, control over the project realization, launch of the innovative product into production. The analysis of the Russian legislative framework revealed a number of shortcomings in the regulation of investment platforms: lack of clarifications on the regulation of activities with cryptocurrency transactions, the conduct of which is legally permitted; attracting investments is available only to legal entities and private entrepreneurs, which hinders the development of startups and does not provide opportunities for fundraising for the implementation of social projects by individuals.Conclusions. A successful crowdfunding campaign of an innovative business project can be conducted if the conditions and sequence of stages of the process under consideration are met. At the same time, the revision of the legislative base in the field of regulating the activities of investment platforms is of particular importance in the development of this area of the economy.