Crowdfunding for non-commercial initiatives

Organizations and individuals dealing with non-commercial initiatives are in permanent search for funding. Crowdfunding is an alternative way of collecting funds from general public through Internet-based platforms, which is currently gaining popularity all over the world. There are several research initiatives in that field that show the influence of different factors on the success of campaigns, both with commercial and non-commercial objectives. Non-profit nature of the project is named among key predictors of positive outcome. In this context, the purpose of this work is to check whether the tendencies detected by scholars are valid for non-commercial initiatives, especially those having socially aware objectives, posted on the Belarusian crowdfunding platform Ulej. The method used for validation of the research hypotheses is binary logistic regression and statistical test. The results showed that the dependent variable success is influenced by such independent variables as the funding goal, the sum collected, the number of sponsors and the average pledge. On the other hand, the effect of the duration period is not significant. Inferential analysis shows that there is no difference in the level of success between commercial and non-commercial projects and that social orientation does not increase the likelihood of meeting financial goals. The findings are opposite to those provided in literature. However that could be explained by the short period of functioning of platform and the small number of projects.

Comprehensive economic and financial analysis of the enterprise activity: approaches, methods and implementation

This thesis intends to analyse the performance and the efficiency of companies and to identify the key factors that may explain it. A comprehensive analysis based on a set of economic and financial ratios was studied as an instrument which provides information on enterprise performance and its efficiency. It was selected a sample with 15 enterprises: 7 Portuguese and 8 Ukrainian ones, belonging to several industries. Financial and non-financial data was collected for 6 years, during the period of 2009 to 2014. Research questions that guided this work were: Are the enterprises efficient/profitable? What factors influence enterprises’ efficiency/performance? Is there any difference between Ukrainian and Portuguese enterprises’ efficiency/performance, which factors have more influence? Which industrial sector is represented by more efficient/profitable enterprises? The main results showed that in average enterprises were efficient; comparing by states Ukrainian enterprises are more efficient; industries have similar level of efficiency. Among factors that influence ATR positively are fixed and current assets turnover ratios, ROA; negatively influencing are EBITDA margin and liquidity ratio. There is no significant difference between models by country. Concerning profitability, enterprises have low performance level but in comparison of countries Ukrainian enterprises have better profitability in average. Regarding the industry sector, paper industry is the most profitable. Among factors influencing ROA are profit margin, fixed asset turnover ratio, EBITDA margin, Debt to equity ratio and the country. In case of profitability both countries have different models. For Ukrainian enterprises is suggested to pay attention on factors of Short-term debt to total debt, ROA, Interest coverage ratio in order to be more efficient; Profit margin and EBITDA margin to make their performance better. For Portuguese enterprises for improving efficiency the observation and improvement of fixed assets turnover ratio, current assets turnover ratio, Short-term financial debt to total debt, Leverage Ratio, EBITDA margin is suggested; for improving higher profitability track fixed assets turnover ratio, current assets turnover ratio, Debt to equity ratio, Profit margin and Interest coverage ratio is suggested.

Crowdfunding for entrepreneurship: an exploratory multivariate analysis concerning kickstarter and indiegogo platforms

The general purpose of this work is to describe and analyse the financing phenomenon of crowdfunding and to investigate the relations among crowdfunders, project creators and crowdfunding websites. More specifically, it also intends to describe the profile differences between major crowdfunding platforms, such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo. The findings are supported by literature, gathered from different scientific research papers. In the empirical part, data about Kickstarter and Indiegogo was collected from their websites and also complemented with further data from other statistical websites. For finding out specific information, such as satisfaction of entrepreneurs from both platforms, a satisfaction survey was applied among 200 entrepreneurs from different countries. To identify the profile of users of the Kickstarter and of the Indiegogo platforms, a multivariate analysis was performed, using a Hierarchical Clusters Analysis for each platform under study. Descriptive analysis was used for exploring information about popularity of platforms, average cost and the most popular area of projects, profile of users and future opportunities of platforms. To assess differences between groups, association between variables, and answering to the research hypothesis, an inferential analysis it was applied. The results showed that the Kickstarter and Indiegogo are one of the most popular crowdfunding platforms. Both of them have thousands of users and they are generally satisfied. Each of them uses individual approach for crowdfunders. Despite this, they both could benefit from further improving their services. Furthermore, according the results it was possible to observe that there is a direct and positive relationship between the money needed for the projects and the money collected from the investors for the projects, per platform.