Crowdfunding vs. Venture Capital - En analys av svenska startups finansieringsmetod och prestation

Abstract

Despite Sweden, and Stockholm in particular, being one of the best places on earth for a startup, it’s not entirely problem free reaching success. One of the most important aspects of starting a new company is how you are going to finance the startup and development of it, and in recent years new methods for raising capital has emerged. We have in our study researched the impact of different methods of financing on Swedish startups. The companies we focused on have raised capital either through crowdfunding, or from venture capital firms and business angles in the period between 2013-2015. With a qualitative study, we have answered our research question based in four different criteria’s: financial growth, financial result, number of bankruptcies and product delays. Four interviews were executed with four persons that have first-hand experience with our research question. The data that built the foundation of our analysis were gathered from crowdfunding websites and Swedish business papers. Contrary to our initial beliefs, the crowdfunded companies outperformed the venture capital funded companies when looking at financial performance and number of bankruptcies. The only performance aspect that venture capital funded companies performed best in where growth rates. The study also showed that the most obvious difference between the two types of companies were their business model. The companies that sell a physical consumer product tends to use crowdfunding significantly more often than other. Companies that have more complex software-based product were the majority of companies that were funded through venture capital and business angels.