Start-Up Britain 2017: The Wisdom of the Crowd(funding)

Jeff Deighton of the insight engineers continues his series of polls, this time looking at the success (or otherwise) of Crowdfunding.

Recent ‘Crowdfunding’ success stories, such as maverick Scottish brewer, BrewDog, have piqued interest in alternative investments, following a record period of low interest rates and government bond yields.

Following on from our recent ‘Start-Up Britain’ “Millennipreneurs”, insight engineers questioned over 2,000 UK nationally representative consumers on their attitudes toward Crowdfunding, and discovered the opportunity appeals to a wide audience of potential investors.

Crowdfunding enables consumers, or retail investors, to take a minority stake in the financing of, and any returns/ benefits from, a new creative idea or business venture that is seeking start-up or scale-up capital – often for a relatively modest level of monetary investment.

In our March 2017 poll, a very healthy 1 in 3 of us are open to using a Crowdfunding online platform to invest in a new idea or venture, and it is the ‘Millennials’ who are the early adopters – 22% of under 35s claim to have actually made a Crowdfunding investment.

Following their experience(s), slightly fewer ‘wouldn’t invest again’ (5%) in Crowdfunding (as ‘would’ – 7%) – this may not be due to a poor investment decision or outcome, as for example, only 35% of Kickstarter projects have achieved their funding target.

Whilst Crowdfunding is in it’s infancy, even allowing for over-claim (we don’t or can’t always do what we say), there appears to be huge potential to further fuel the growth of Crowdfunding online platforms, such as Crowdcube, Crowdfunder, Kickstarter and Seedrs, especially as investors seek out more tax efficient solutions and interesting growth opportunities.

Jeff regularly publishes a blog (https://www.insight-engineers.com/index.php/blog/), and is keen to hear from any ICG member who may have any topics or ideas for future polls.