Dear Colleagues,

The term “FinTech”, an abbreviation of “Financial Technology”, started being used broadly in 2014 to refer to the influx of technology tools, platforms, and systems that make financial services or products more accessible, cost-effective, and efficient. Crowdfunding derived from the concept of crowdsourcing is just one of many facets of FinTech [1]. Although the term “FinTech” came into the limelight after the financial crisis of 2007, technology’s incursion into the financial industry took place with the introduction of the automatic teller machine (ATM) in 1967. The umbrella term “FinTech” now includes digital payments, digital financing, robo-advisors, crowdfunding, cryptocurrencies, and markets/services enabled by cryptocurrencies [2].

Alternative forms of entrepreneurial finance are growing, yet our knowledge of them remains in its infancy. With the rapid development of technology, researchers are on the hunt to understand its various aspects, e.g., the economic, social, political, psychological, and sociological aspects of it. Crowdfunding surfaced as a new approach to level the playing field and give individuals, even naive investors, the opportunity to contribute a small amount to an entrepreneur to help meet the funding requirements of new ventures [3]. A sustainable business model innovation is a move towards a system change for sustainability across businesses and industries and crowdfunding can be a good fit to foster the growing and sustainable scale-up model for financing [4]. Sustainability-oriented companies have conventionally found it hard to raise external seed capital [5]. However, the emergence of alternative financing methods, such as crowdfunding, promote sustainability by alleviating the hurdles involved in raising finances through such ventures [6]. With the help of public intervention, crowdfunding can emerge as a vital way to fund the activities through which sustainability-oriented business models can succeed [7]. Even though the interaction between sustainability and finance is the focus of much research, sustainability-related research in entrepreneurial finance is still evolving [8]. Therefore, we invite research articles broadly focussing on crowdfunding as an alternative financing method of entrepreneurship and Sustainable Business Models. The importance of crowdfunding has been evident during the COVID-19 pandemic. By way of example, around 150,000 fundraisers had started COVID-19-related campaigns on GoFundMe.com by 31 August 2020 [9]. Between March 1 and August 31, 2020, the GoFundMe community raised over $625 million through over 9 million donations for frontline workers, small companies, causes, and more. In America, over 175,000 COVID-19 related campaigns were active on GoFundMe in the first half of 2020.¹

This Special Issue calls for papers that contribute to addressing the following areas (but it is not strictly limited to these). The papers could be conceptual, empirical, quantitative, qualitative, or case studies, as long as they address business practices related to sustainability.

• Crowdfunding as an alternative financing method of entrepreneurship.
• Crowdfunding as an alternate method of financing sustainable ventures.
• The eco-system under which crowdfunding creates sustainable business models.
• Crowdfunding campaigns related to sustainable business models in different economic, social, cultural and political settings.
• Differences and similarities of characteristics of crowdfunding forms (e.g., equity-based, donation-based, reward-based, and lending-based crowdfunding).
• Sustainability-oriented campaigns on different forms of crowdfunding platforms (e.g., equity-based, donation-based, reward-based, and lending-based crowdfunding) pre-, during-, and post-COVID-19.
• The motivation of contributors and entrepreneurs to choose to crowdfund for sustainable business models.
• Sustainability-oriented campaigns in different forms of crowdfunding platforms (e.g., equity-based, donation-based, reward-based crowdfunding).
• Opportunities and challenges related to crowdfunding as an alternative financing method of entrepreneurship and sustainable business models during and after the COVID-19 period.

Reference

1. Hasnan, A framework for Crowdfunding platforms to match services between funders and fundraisers. J. Ind. Distrib. Bus. 2019, 10, 25–31.
2. Ma, Y.;  Liu, D. Introduction to the special issue on Crowdfunding and Financ. Innov. 2017, 3, 1–4.
3. Bruton, G.; Khavul, S.; Siegel, D.; Wright, M. New financial alternatives in seeding entrepreneurship: Microfinance, crowdfunding, and peer–to–peer Entrep. Theory Pract. 2015, 39, 9–26.
4. Yip, A.W.; Bocken, N.M. Sustainable business model archetypes for the banking J. Clean. Prod. 2018, 174, 150–169.
5. Ortas, E.; Burritt, R.L.; Moneva, J.M. Socially Responsible Investment and cleaner production in the Asia Pacific: does it pay to be good? Clean. Prod. 2013, 52, 272–280.
6. Block, J.H.; Colombo, M.G.; Cumming, D.J.; Vismara, S. New players in entrepreneurial finance and why they are Small Bus. Econ. 2018, 50, 239–250.
7. Petruzzelli, A.M.; Natalicchio, A.; Panniello, U.; Roma, P. Understanding the crowdfunding phenomenon and its implications for Technol. Forecast. Soc. Change 2019, 141, 138–148.
8. Vismara, Sustainability in equity crowdfunding. Technol. Forecast. Soc. Change 2019, 141, 98–106.
9. Igra, M.; Kenworthy, N.; Luchsinger, C.; Jung, J.K. Crowdfunding as a response to COVID-19: Increasing inequities at a tzime of Soc. Sci. Med. 2021, 282, 114105.doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114105

Note

1. The Data Behind Donations During the COVID-19 Pandemic n.d. https://medium.com/gofundme-stories/the-data-behind-donations-during-the-COVID-19-pandemic-c40e0f690bfa

Dr. Hasnan Baber
Dr. Mina Fanea-Ivanovici
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. FinTech is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1000 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• crowdfunding
• entrepreneurial finance
• sustainable business models
• sustainability
• equity-based crowdfunding
• reward-based crowdfunding
• P2P lending
• donation-based crowdfunding
• alternate financing
• fintech
• entrepreneurship
• innovation
• sustainable development
• COVID-19
• pandemic