What Do Crowd Equity Investors Do? Exploring Postinvestment Activities in Equity Crowd Funding

Equity crowdfunding has become a viable alternative to the traditional forms of financing technology startups. This survey-based two-study article aims to shed light on the prevalence of crowd equity investors’ postinvestment activities and the antecedents to these engagement activities. Our first study finds that most crowd equity investors engage with the startups in which they invest in some way. While the majority engage in low-involvement activities (e.g., word of mouth), a smaller number of crowd equity investors also engage in high-involvement activities (e.g., strategic advice). Our second study reveals that engagement in these activities is driven by investment-, investor-, and proximity-related factors. In particular, the amount of investment—despite its smallness compared with that in the traditional forms of funding—is a reliable antecedent of crowd equity investors’ engagement in postinvestment activities. Furthermore, age and geographic proximity are positively associated with low-involvement activities, whereas intrinsic motivation and personal proximity are positively linked to high-involvement activities. By providing insights into the prevalence of postinvestment activities in equity crowdfunding and their antecedents, this article contributes to the debate on the potential of equity crowdfunding to complement or even replace the traditional forms of funding technological innovation.