Crowdfunding innovative ventures in Europe : The financial ecosystem and regulatory landscape : executive summary

The objective of this report is to provide a state of play of the crowdfunding industry in Europe with a particular focus on equity-based crowdfunding and its regulatory aspects, providing initial concepts for self- or co-regulation of the sector. The landscape of crowdfunding models can be grouped into two families: the nonfinancial return models (donation, reward or pre-selling) and the financial return models (equity or lending) which are all very different in terms of characteristics for the campaign owners and campaign backers. Europe has a scattered landscape of different models and within each model several variants exist, especially in the case of equity-based crowdfunding. The report focuses on equity-based crowdfunding on which the impact of regulation is most complex and demanding compared to the other crowdfunding models. The global crowdfunding market has grown substantially over the past few years and a large worldwide potential for crowdinvesting is expected to materialise in the next decade. The development and growth on a national level varies widely and depends on many factors situated in the demand, supply or cultural aspects