Entrepreneurial, innovative and small- and medium-sized firms experience difficulties with raising funds using traditional debt and equity. Consequently, they are constantly looking for new strategies of financing. The latest inventions are crowdfunding and token issues. In contrast to traditional ways of raising funds these innovations: (1) use modern technology (online transactions, blockchain, etc.) much more actively; (2) are usually quicker in reaching potential investors/funders; (3) use more active network benefits such as, for example, a large number of interactions between investors/funders and between funders and firms. These changes are so significant that some experts list them among the top business inventions of the 21st century. This article provides a review of the growing number of theoretical papers in the areas of crowdfunding and token issues, compares their findings with empirical evidence and discusses directions for future research. The research shows that a large gap exists between the theoretical literature and empirical literature.

Crowdfunding has mostly been used to finance very unique projects. Recently, however, companies have begun using it to finance more traditional products where they compete against other sellers of similar products. Major crowdfunding platforms, Kickstarter and Indiegogo, as well as Amazon have launched several projects consistent with this trend. This paper offers a model where two competing firms can use crowdfunding prior to direct sales. The model provides several implications that have not yet been tested e.g., (1) Firms can use crowdfunding strategically to signal a high level of demand for their products; (2) (Reward-based) crowdfunding is procyclical; (3) A higher platform fee may lead to higher firm profits in equilibrium; (4) Competition increases the chances of using crowdfunding compared to the monopoly case; (5) A non-monotonic relationship exists between the risk of crowdfunding campaign failure and firm profit.

This article is the first one that considers a model of the choice between the different types of crowdfunding, which contains elements of the asymmetric information approach and behavioral finance (overconfident entrepreneurs). The model provides several implications, most of which have not yet been tested. Our model predicts that equity-based crowdfunding is more profitable than reward-based crowdfunding when an entrepreneur is overconfident. This is because the entrepreneur learns from the sale of shares before making production decisions. The model also predicts that an equilibrium can exist where some firms use equity-based crowdfunding, which contrasts the results of traditional theories (which have rational managers), for example, the pecking-order theory. It also contrasts traditional behavioral finance literature (e. g. Fairchild, R. 2005. “The Effect of Managerial Overconfidence, Asymmetric Information, and Moral Hazard on Capital Structure Decisions.” ICFAI Journal of Behavioral Finance 2 (4).) where equity is not issued in equilibrium.

This paper considers a financing problem for an innovative firm that is launching a web-based platform. The entrepreneur, on one hand, faces a large degree of demand uncertainty on his product and on the other hand has to deal with incentive problems of professional blockchain participants who contribute to the development and sales of the product. We argue that hybrid tokens can be a better option for the firm compared to straight utility tokens or security tokens because they help the firm better deal with both the moral hazard problems (via profit sharing incentives) and demand uncertainty (they help the firm learn the market demand for the product). This finding is consistent with some recent evidence. The paper also generates new predictions regarding the effect of different variables on the choice of financing method that have not yet been tested.