Raising Capital Under Demand Uncertainty
42 Pages Posted: 30 Jan 2020 Last revised: 28 Jan 2021
Date Written: June 1, 2019
Abstract
We study an environment where an entrepreneur seeks capital to finance the development of a new product whose future demand is uncertain. We explore how the entrepreneur can capitalize on the information generated by potential investors. Under the optimal contract (i) investors take their backing decisions sequentially, and (ii) the project is financed only if it receives enough financial support; otherwise, the entrepreneur does not raise capital. Our work provides testable insights for security-based crowdfunding that help us understand its economic value and the conditions under which it can be a valuable method of financing.
Keywords: Information Aggregation, Crowdfunding, Learning, Uncertainty
JEL Classification: D82, D83, G32
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation