ESTUDIO DE APLICABILIDAD DE MÉTODOS DE FINANCIACIÓN COLECTIVA DE PROYECTOS (CROWDFUNDING)

Abstract

During the last years, new alternatives to the traditional mechanisms of project financing have appeared. One of the most successful methods is the so called ‘crowdfunding’. This term involves very diverse phenomena, all of them based on the donation of few amounts of money from a crowd of people, using nothing else than a virtual platform and its managers as intermediaries. The term ‘crowdfunding’ involves several types of financing. Generally speaking, ‘crowdfunding’ is used for donations, loans, reward or investment, depending on the remuneration the funder receives. On the other hand, there are many other variables to be taken into consideration in order to decide if this method is applicable to finance a project. In this paper, an analysis is made on the main features of these methods of project financing and they are compared to other systems of project financing. The final result is a decision-making system in order to choose on the most appropriate financing method according to the main characteristics of the project and its environment. Although crowdfunding methods are usually applicable to a wide range of initiatives (music, films, …) the aim of this study is mainly focused on innovative projects, the so called startups.