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Journal of Modern Accounting and Auditing, January 2017, Vol. 13, No. 1, 19-34
doi: 10.17265/1548-6583/2017.01.003
The Evolution of Crowdfunding Towards an Impact Investing
Logic: The Case of Paulownia Social Project
Rosangela Feola, Roberto Parente
University of Studies of Salerno, Fisciano, Italy
Tommaso D’Onofrio
Confindustria Innovation and Technology Services, Roma, Italy
Ezio Marinato, Dario Pellegrino
University of Studies of Salerno, Fisciano, Italy
In the last years, crowdfunding is arising as a widespread financing and fundraising tool, allowing to turn a large
audience of customers into investors, individuals who can supply financial capital. Thus, crowdfunding represents a
novel mechanism of fundraising embedded in the current financial innovation, which operates in order to produce
convergent innovations that produce both economic and social outcomes. Studies are mainly aimed to understand
which factors led a crowdfunding campaign towards the success. The whole research aims to analyse the new
emerging financial tool, known as crowdfunding, with the purpose to understand and explain how it collaborates
with the main traditional financial mechanisms used by enterprises. This study leds the author to recognize a new
emerging shape for the crowdfunding, a structure which allows to take advantage of the traditional limits of funds
of investment. Thus, both the capability to attract a great number of investors and the social content of the
project-to-fund represent the push to move the crowd investment towards impact investing. The newness of the
topic, the lack of certain and various data, the youth of the analyzed phenomenon, and the explorative nature of the
research, pushed the authors to choose a case study approach.
Keywords: crowdfunding, social innovation, financial innovation, impact investing
Introduction
The crowdsourcing revolution (Howe, 2006) started a process of rethinking the access to knowledge-based
resources, assimilating the key concepts and basis of co-creation process (Normann & Ramirez, 1993) through
the disintermediation of web-based platforms, digital technologies, and online communities that even enhance
the access to financial resources (Agrawal, Catalini, & Goldfarb, 2011; Laubacher, 2012; Bryniolfsson &
Rosangela Feola, Ph.D., Research Fellow, Department of Business Sciences – Management and Innovation Systems, University
of Studies of Salerno. Email: emarinato@unisa.it.
Roberto Parente, Full Professor, Department of Business Sciences – Management and Innovation Systems, University of Studies
of Salerno.
Tommaso D’Onofrio, Vice-President, AISCRIS - Association of Italian Consulting Firms for Research, Innovation and
Development, Confindustria Innovation and Technology Services.
Ezio Marinato, Ph.D., Researcher, Department of Business Sciences – Management and Innovation Systems, University of
Studies of Salerno.
Dario Pellegrino, Ph.D., Researcher, Department of Business Sciences – Management and Innovation Systems, University of
Studies of Salerno.
DAVID PUBLISHING
D
EVOLUTION OF CROWDFUNDING TOWARDS AN IMPACT INVESTING LOGIC
20
McAfee, 2014). In the context of stakeholder approach (Freeman, 1984), integrated in a quintuple helix model
(Carayannis & Campbell, 2009), these activities directly affect all the ecosystems where enterprises live,
translating themselves into an evolutionary step of innovation towards social innovation that solves some of
nowadays criticalities (Christensen, Baumann, Ruggles, & Sadtler, 2006; Schenk & Guittard, 2011; Guida &
Maiolini, 2013), especially the financial one through the crowdfunding (Landström, 1992; 1993;
Schwienbacher & Larralde, 2010; Ordanini, Miceli, Pizzetti, & Parasuraman, 2011; Freund, 2012; Gerber, Hui,
& Kuo, 2012; Miglietta, Parisi, Pessione, & Servato, 2013; Wheat, Wang, Byrnes, & Ranganathan, 2013;
Belleflamme, Lambert, & Schwienbacher, 2014; Marlett, 2015). Recently, crowdfunding opened to an easy
access to the widespread financial resources unlocking the firms to fundraise their developmental activities in
their early stage. Thus, crowdfunding seems to show its capability to produce a social impact (Slootweg,
Vanclay, & van Schooten, 2001; Shaw & Carter, 2007; Bull, 2007; Nicholls, 2009; Arvidson, Lyon, McKay, &
Moro, 2010; Lane & Casile, 2011; Barraket & Yousefpour, 2013; Estévez, Walshe, & Burgman, 2013)
especially considering its vocation to fund social enterprises, which underline the new crowd investing shape
very close to the impact investing phenomenon.
From the analysis of the current literature, what emerges is the lack of the attention about the role of both
the social impact of crowdfunding and the influence of project-to-fund social content on the result of a
crowdfunding campaign. Starting from these premises, in this explorative study, the authors focalize their
attention on the relation between crowdfunding and impact investing. They aim to identify which are the
financial mechanisms to serve the social enterprises via the observation of an equity crowdfunding campaign
launched to fundraise an entrepreneurial project with a social vocation.
In particular, the authors studied the equity crowdfunding investment, relying on the behaviour of many
European countries, which are tending to regulate and support equity crowdfunding in order to supply equity to
small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The purpose is to understand how the social orientation of a start-up
project, in the meaning of the creation of social outcomes, could influence the success of a crowdfunding
campaign led on an equity-based platform. Specifically, adopting a case study approach, the authors observed
the evolution and the results of a crowdfunding campaign that involved both an equity crowdfunding platform
“Assiteca Crowd” and a social project by a start-up called “Paulownia”, which was able to collect more than
€500k (27% from professional investors) from 12 investors.
The research shows that crowdfunding could be helpful to both raise financial-based resources for
innovative companies and produce social outcomes to the benefit of all the interested communities. Our
research could have implication for both entrepreneurs (especially innovative companies) and crowdfunding
platform owner, in order to set up an effective and succeeding crowdfunding industry.
Literature Review
Social Impact
The interest among scholars about social impact is growing faster, because of nowadays changes in the
entrepreneurial and business framework. Taking the necessary differences, the study about the new emerging
social entrepreneurship movements and theoretical antecedents by Shaw and Carter (2007) underlined how
the new shape of social enterprises is tending to the for-profit characterization. This view agrees with Porter
and Kramer (2011) idea about a reinvention of capitalism towards a structure characterized by businesses
shaped around the creating shared value concept, to unlock the next wave of business innovation and growth.
EVOLUTION OF CROWDFUNDING TOWARDS AN IMPACT INVESTING LOGIC
21
Tout court, there is no more need of a trade-off between profits and social needs. That means a new way to
intend and measure the impact of for-profit activities on the society.
The International Committee on Guidelines and Principles for Social Impact Assessment (ICGP), in the year
2003, defined social impact as “the consequence to human populations of any public or private actions that alter
the ways in which people live, work, play, relate one to another, organize to meet their needs and generally cope
as members of society. The term also includes cultural impact involving changes to the norms, values and beliefs
that guide and rationalize the cognition of themselves and their society”. According to Slootweg et al. (2001) and
Estévez et al. (2013), social impact could be deconstructed into two main concepts: social changes and human
impacts. The two concepts are strongly related through a causal relationship, which affects the decision-making
processes and the capture and measurement of social impact itself, because of social criteria that may be both
positive and negative, depending on the changing perceptions (Burdge & Vanclay, 1995; Vanclay, 2002).
Social impact concerns the outcomes that hit a specified community in terms of social performances that
could be translated in the wide spread social value, which means the result of the social enterprises activities on
their stakeholders. In contradiction with financial values, the social ones are qualitative and less rigorous,
implying that social impact may be not easy to measure (Bull, 2007; Nicholls, 2009; Arvidson et al., 2010;
Lane & Casile, 2011; Barraket & Yousefpour, 2013). However, Bagnoli and Megali (2011) argued that there is
a strong relationship between inputs and organizational processes of an enterprise and the outputs and outcomes
that identify the social impacts.
Impact Investing
The attention about social impact is even the key factor of the current financial industry tendency, which is
focused on the fostering of impact investing or other financial investing mechanisms that could produce both
financial and social returns (Harji & Jackson, 2012; Louche, Arenas, & van Cranenburgh, 2012; Höchstädter &
Scheck, 2015; Nicholls, 2010).
Impact investing is a rather new phenomenon whose definition is strongly related to the capability to
create a social impact as well as a financial return on investment (Clarkin & Cangioni, 2016) by matching
philanthropic aims, government action, and profit-seeking investment (Freireich & Fulton, 2009). There is a
trait d’union between social impact and impact investing, because the second aims to reach goals in both
economical and social fields, using financial models of investment with a social responsible peculiarity and
focusing on creating positive social or environmental impact.
The current literature (Freireich & Fulton, 2009; Nicholls, 2010; Harji & Jackson, 2012; Louche et al., 2012;
Martin, 2013; Clarkin & Cangioni, 2016; Höchstädter & Scheck, 2015) is positioning under the definition of
impact investing different manifestations known as social finance, social impact investing, or blended value
investing, and all the financing instruments created to gain both social and financial returns (Bagwell, 2012).
Short, Moss, and Lumpkin (2009) identified the opportunities reserved by impact investing in the research to
expand the role of financing and in the research to find a new way to finance social ventures. In fact, following
the evolution from social responsibility to social innovation, the growth of social entrepreneurship, in the
meaning of an organized effort to address solution to social issues, is going through a maturation phase that opens
new frontiers for the financing community (Clarkin & Cangioni, 2016). This is strongly linked to “the change in
capitalism”, described by Porter and Kramer (2011) in their “creating sharing value” study, which shows a new
way to approach a profit-oriented firm that should be socially and environmentally driven.
EVOLUTION OF CROWDFUNDING TOWARDS AN IMPACT INVESTING LOGIC
22
Thus, this new emerging industry has started to create network and metrics to measure its value through the
measurement of the social impact, which is usually seen as a qualitative variable (Jackson, 2013; Clarkin &
Cangioni, 2016). The need for a measure of impact investing through the social impact measurement has been
shortly satisfied by the Impact Reporting and Investment Standards (IRIS), which offers a common set of
definitions, and the Global Impact Investing Rating System (GIIRS), an analogue of the Standard and Poor’s or
Morningstar rating systems, uses a common set of indicators to measure the social performance (Jackson, 2013).
The possibility to give a measure of the impact, the new generation of business and socially savvy
entrepreneurs that is launching ventures across an array of regions and sectors, and the cash-strapped government
(Bugg-Levine & Emerson, 2011) are the reasons behind the creation of a great number of impact investment
funds (Höchstädter & Scheck, 2015).
Crowdfunding
Crowdfunding has recently drawn the attention of both scholars and professionals as an outstanding
financial tool. Because of its evolutionary nature, from its birth this financial mechanism has experienced a lot of
changes, with a common driver: the capability to adapt the crowdfunding model to many different fields.
From the analysis of the current literature, what emerges is the lack of the attention about the role of both the
social impact of crowdfunding and the influence of project-to-fund social content on the result of a crowdfunding
campaign.
For this reason, in this explorative study, the authors focalize their attention on the relation between
crowdfunding and impact investing. In particular, the authors studied the equity crowdfunding investment,
relying on the behaviour of many European countries which are tending to regulate and to support equity
crowdfunding, in order to supply equity to small and medium enterprises (SMEs). In fact, after the Italian
experience about equity crowdfunding regulation (Decree Law “Crescita 2.0”, converted in law in 2012), other
European countries are, similarly, designing specific regulation.
On one hand, Landström (1992; 1993) argued that the equity gap challenge represents the highest barrier to
overcome for every start-up company. The difficulties, in fact, increase when the financial sub-pillar, in a specific
regional system, is not effective. This leads to the need of researching alternative financial tools that could be
considered as a complement or a substitute of traditional and formal investment mechanisms (Wright, Lockett,
Clarysse, & Binks, 2006).
On the other hand, crowdsourcing revolution (Howe, 2006) and technology platforms started a
disintermediation process that changed the dynamics of integration economies (Piller, Moeslein, & Stotko, 2004)
between the broad types of user and producer. Crowdsourcing is influencing innovation processes, through a
mechanism of interaction between the providers and the seekers of strategic resources. At the beginning, the
strategic resources involved in this interaction were mainly knowledge-based resources, but nowadays the
financial-based resources are becoming a relevant aspect of crowdsourcing, thanks to crowdfunding.
In the last years, crowdfunding is arising as a widespread financing and fundraising tool, which allows
turning a large audience of customers into investors (Schwienbacher & Larralde, 2010; Ordanini et al., 2011;
Belleflamme et al., 2014). These authors agree with the idea that crowdfunding lies on different elements that
could be macro-categorized in: web, social (relational) capital (Bordieu, 1985), financial resources and, indeed,
crowdsourcing (Poetz & Schreier, 2012). The need to feed a strong wide community highlights the social
network structure of crowdfunding, but as Mollick (2014) argued, this investment vehicle takes the steps from
the evolution of micro-finance (Morduch, 1999).
EVOLUTION OF CROWDFUNDING TOWARDS AN IMPACT INVESTING LOGIC
23
Crowdfunding is a funding vehicle that embraces different contexts as well as social, civic, and academic
ones (Giannola & Riotta, 2013; Davies, 2014a). It literally connects entrepreneurs with potential funders, or
rather individuals who can supply financial capital (Wheat et al., 2013; Marlett, 2015).
According to prior studies, crowdfunding intervenes as a motivational crowdwork factor (Gerber et al.,
2012; Miglietta et al., 2013) that permits to pass over the barriers linked to proximity and credit crunch (Freund,
2012). This is possible thanks to the intermediation internet-based platforms, which act as a market place where
it is possible to collect and canalize the scattered unlocked private capitals to sustain business ideas from
research, decreasing the weight of geographical proximity in the innovation process (Agrawal et al., 2011).
Crowdfunding could be classified into two macro-areas: token crowdfunding and investing crowdfunding
(Schwienbacher & Larralde, 2010). Token crowdfunding encompasses the different expressions of donation
crowdfunding, which is a donation-based model, i.e., charity online fundraising campaign. Instead, investing
crowdfunding can be further broken down into passive investment and active investment. The passive investment
encloses the lending-based and reward-based models, which differ one another from the type of return provided
for the investors. The active investment, essentially, defines the equity-based model, which is going to be the most
important crowdfunding manifestation for the SMEs. Looking at a generalized context, crowdfunding, on the
whole, acts in different but correlated directions: supplies financial resource, offers markets insights, and lets the
SMEs to engage in venture capital (Wardrop, Zhang, Rau, & Gray, 2015). Thus, crowdfunding represents an
alternative finance market. Following the presented peculiarities of investing crowdfunding, it could be considered
as a subset of crowdfunding in the whole that could be easily defined as crowdinvesting. Crowdinvesting allows
people to directly answer to the financial resource need expressed by a specified project. This financing
mechanism was born in 2012 and its industry produced $28 billion in 2015 (1° Report Italiano sul Crowdinvesting,
2016). The most diffused expression of crowdinvesting is the equity crowdfunding model which allows
individuals to subscribe, via web-based platforms, equity shares of a company which runs a crowdfunding
campaign. USA and Italy were the first countries which have tried to introduce the alternative financing
mechanism. Italy was the first to release in 2012 a crowdfunding regulation included in the Law Decree
“Sviluppo-Bis” and ruled by the CONSOB (National Securities and Exchange Commission) even though the most
representative market is the United Kingdom where CrowdCube, the main crowdfunding platform, raised £168
million. The above quoted regulation allows Italian start-ups, small business and financial vehicles which invest in
them to access to the equity crowdfunding as long as they interact through a CONSOB authorized platform.
To date, Italian crowdfunding platforms, since its first appearance with the foundation of Produzioni Dal
Basso1 in 2005, have shown a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 85.7% from 2005 to 2015 that is
expected to turn into 63.9% at the end of 2016, considering the upcoming new crowdfunding platforms.
Looking at the insights from the market in 2014, the success rate of the crowdfunding campaign launched on
the different living platforms (Osservatorio Crowdfunding, 2016) is about 30% in the mean. The success rate of
crowdfunding campaigns launched on an equity platform is 33%. The total volume of investments made via
crowdfunding platforms in 2015 is €56.8 million, with a growth rate of 85% from 2014. More than €1.6
millions come from the registered 13 equity crowdfunding platforms. Moreover, 34% of the launched campaign
clearly expressed their social vocation as well as their mission to address solutions to social issues.
1 Produzioni Dal Basso is a reward and donation crowdfunding platform, born in 2005, which works in the DIY digital
productions. In 2013, it had been established and registered as an innovative start-up.
EVOLUTION OF CROWDFUNDING TOWARDS AN IMPACT INVESTING LOGIC
24
Focusing on equity crowdfunding, the “1° Report italiano sul Crowdinvesting” (2016) showed that the mean
volume of investment specified in the target of each crowdfunding campaign is €317k with an offer for equity of
23%, which corresponds with a prodigal pre-money evaluation of €1 million. Although the total amount of the
financial resources raised is €5.6 million that is under the expectation and the potentiality of the market. These are
some of the criticalities of this model that, together with the almost absolute absence of the rights of vote linked to
the subscribed shares, express the light and shades of the equity crowdfunding mechanism.
So, studies are mainly aimed to understand which factors led a crowdfunding campaign towards the success,
taking the steps from the work on fundraising in venture capital context (MacMillan, Zemann, &
Subbanarasimha, 1987; Baum & Silverman, 2004; Dushnitsky & Shaver, 2009; Dushnitsky, 2010). Some
authors (Mollick, 2014; Agrawal et al., 2011) noticed a relevant impact of quality signals, social network ties,
appropriate goals, and careful planning on the success of a campaign. Moreover, the experience of civic
crowdfunding in few European countries (Gray, 2013; The Economist, 2013; Hollow, 2013; Davies, 2014b)
showed how the probability to produce widespread social benefits catalyses people in order to fund projects and
to reach the expected funding goal. Thus, the social element seems to be crucial as well the above quoted ones.
Looking at the equity crowdfunding model, this influence expressed by the social vocation seems to be
unclear, unless scholars will steer the attention to social enterprises.
Going in depth of the source of financial need, considering the composition of a community made by
individuals with different needs, the entrepreneurial and financial institutions have to face a huge variety of
formulation of intents, so they are influenced by a lot of actors, according to the stakeholder theory. All these
individuals could be grouped into many niches that crowdfunding phenomenon seems to be able to engage,
following the evidence of the application of the long tail theory (Anderson, 2006).
Thus, crowdfunding represents a novel mechanism of fundraising embedded in the current financial
innovation (Moenninghoff & Wieandt, 2013), which operates in order to produce convergent innovation (Dubé,
Jha, Faber, Struben, London, Mohapatra, ..., & McDermott, 2014). It means innovation that produces both
economic and social (human) outcomes. These aspects clarify the increasing attention from scholars and
practitioners on this financial tool. Even governments are interested in crowdfunding, the U.S. Government, for
example, was the first who put its attention on this new investment vehicle, understanding the inner potential
represented by crowdfunding for the new emerging enterprises. Government like the Italian one decided to study
the phenomenon and released regulations about crowdfunding. USA, India, and Turkey are moving in the same
way (Bruton, Khavul, Siegel, & Wright, 2015).
Purpose/Thesis
The aim is to understand how the social direction of a start-up project, in the meaning of the creation of
social outcomes, could influence the success of a crowdfunding campaign led on an equity-based platform.
Specifically, the authors observed the evolution and the results of a crowdfunding campaign that involved both an
equity crowdfunding platform “Assiteca Crowd” and a social project by a start-up called “Paulownia”, which was
able to collect more than €500k (27% from professional investors) from 12 investors.
Following the evidence of the literature review, the authors have noticed a gap about the study of the impact
of social vocation on the success of a crowdfunding campaign. This paper aims to identify which are the financial
mechanisms to serve the social enterprises via the observation of an equity crowdfunding campaign launched to
fundraise an entrepreneurial project with a social vocation. A case study approach is adopted to draw the shape of
EVOLUTION OF CROWDFUNDING TOWARDS AN IMPACT INVESTING LOGIC
25
equity crowdfunding applied to a social enterprise. Throughout a study about the experience of the start-up
“Paulownia” and the crowdfunding host platform “Assiteca Crowd”, the authors focalized their attention on the
importance of the shared value creation and social vocation in leading a successful crowdfunding campaign.
The authors try to answer the question about the failure of modern finance and capitalism in harnessing
social issues. According to the literature review, it means that equity crowdfunding is moving towards the impact
investing.
Methodology
The newness of the topic, as well as the lack of certain and various data, the peculiar youth of the analyzed
phenomenon and, moreover, the explorative nature of the research, pushed the authors to choose a case study
approach (Yin, 2009).
To be clear, the authors’ aim is to identify and understand a specific phenomenon, relatively new in
literature. Therefore, the research is designed as a qualitative and epistemological investigation with a holistic
approach. The authors built a single case study research, borrowing elements and characterization from the
grounded theory (Strauss & Corbin, 1990; 1998; Charmaz, 2008).
Eisenhardt (1989) explained that one or more cases are useful to develop theories about some specific topics.
Because of the current framework, it could be useful to follow an inductive development of the theory that aspires
to recognize and describe the existence of a phenomenon (Siggelkow, 2002; 2007). Through conceptual exercise
and question (Siggelkow, 2002; 2007), the authors start a case-based research, with empirical evidence collected
by observation of participants (Burgess, 2002), studying a single case.
In the way to strengthen this assumption, looking at a single case, it takes the start for the attempt to research a
meaning and to give a sense to the observed phenomenon, from a local and contextual perspective (Burgess, 2002).
At the beginning, the authors look at crowdfunding in the whole, and then they focus on the equity
crowdfunding model as the greatest expression of active crowd-investment model, which is the core of this work,
considering that many European countries are tending to regulate equity crowdfunding, in order to supply equity
to SMEs. In fact, after the Italian experience about equity crowdfunding regulation (Decree Law “Crescita 2.0”,
converted in law in 2012), other European countries are, similarly, designing specific regulation. Then, the
authors went in depth the topic collecting the needed data from different sources, database and by the adoption of
different methods. Therefore, data were collected first from the web and then from the insight of the Assiteca
Crowd platform. Then, the authors continued to gather data from the observation and by interviewing the
Paulownia spokesperson.
Results were analysed in comparison with the context interpretation.
Case
In order to define what may concern the relationship between crowdfunding and impact investing, this
study investigates a case study about an equity crowdfunding campaign led on an Italian equity crowdfunding
platform “Assiteca Crowd”.
The authors investigated Paulownia Social Project srl, an innovative start-up with a social vocation, created
by a team of experts coming from the renewable energy sector, agriculture and environmental protection. Its
mission is to develop plantations of fast-growing trees, activities also known as Short Rotation Forestry (SFR), in
order to allocate the raw material obtained, in both national and international timber sectors. Its crowdfunding
EVOLUTION OF CROWDFUNDING TOWARDS AN IMPACT INVESTING LOGIC
26
campaign was hosted on the Assiteca Crowd equity-based platform, an Italian web-based portal where the equity
fundraising is legal, regulated, and safe. Assiteca Crowd is one of the Italian crowdfunding platforms certified by
the CONSOB.
The reasons why the authors decided to investigate Paulownia crowdfunding campaign lean on the awareness
that this innovative start-up experienced the most successful fundraising activities via web-based platform. Table 1
shows the best crowdfunding projects, among which Paulownia Social Project srl is the second best within all the
successful campaigns, but the first within the equity crowdfunding successful campaigns. Assiteca Crowd hosted
for 56 days the Paulownia campaigns that are the days it needed to gather about €520k from 12 investors.
Table 1
The Six Most Successful Campaigns Led on an Italian Crowdfunding Platform (2015-2016)
Projects Platform €
Ricostruiamo Città della Scienza DeRev 1,463,867.00
Paulownia Social Project Assiteca Crowd 520,000.00
BIOerg Next Equity 452,576.00
Cantiere Savona Starsup 380,000.00
Un passo per San Luca Ginger 339,743.00
E’ l’ora della solidarietà: emergenza Sardegna Rete del Dono 138,896.00
Note. Source: Il Crowdfunding in Italia Report 2015, 2016. Retrieved from
http://www.economyup.it/upload/images/01_2016/160108144117.pdf.
This experience seems to represent one of the best practices that support the idea about crowdfunding as a
financial instrument, able to support SMEs to face the equity gap challenge in their start-up stage. In fact, the case
of Paulownia represents an edge case, which is useful to indicate how equity crowdfunding applied to a “slightly”
social enterprise could fulfill the aspirations about creating both profits and positive social and environmental
impact. Data were collected, for the first instance, from the platform to recognize the main characteristics of the
campaign itself and the aspects related to the investors, their investments, and their geographic localization.
Mainly, the company’s purpose is the development, production, and marketing of innovative products or
services with high technological value applied to the forestry in Italy. Paulownia developed patented new plant
varieties and acquired under license others, in order to use selected samples to ensure rapid growth, excellent
quality of the timber, and maximum absorption of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The social activities will
be carried out taking care of the optimization of production processes and the identifiability of the product, also
through innovative tools, so that the timber produced by the company can be marketed on the community market
in order to support the community supply of wood or biomass ensuring traceability, as required by the EU and
national legislation in force. From the environmental point of view, the production of Paulownia, made by the
company, will contribute significantly to the reduction of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere and,
therefore, the company can carry out any activity to enhance the environmental benefits generated by the project.
In addition, the company may perform ancillary activities on forestry and compatible with them, such as the
production of organic honey in the same object main activity sites, vocational training and social education
addressed to junior high and high school students, realizing special school educational programs and participation
in university research projects. The company is considered an innovative start-up with a social vocation. The
company may carry out all the business, financial, investment and real estate that the administrative organ deems
useful or necessary for the implementation of activities that constitute the corporate purpose.
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a
high-t
e
financing; e
q
l
l as impact i
n
g
raphical dispe
r
Tor ino
ap
oli
Palermo
W
DFUNDIN
o
cial Project
i
e
es, an activit
y
the fastest i
n
u
la
r
, it has be
e
.
The selecte
d
e
rior charact
e
o
ther types of
a
20-year cyc
l
c
ampaign, P
a
f
act, while a
o
ffered 87%
e
ct, in the lig
h
n
and is equal
k
s to equity
n
ew membe
r
o
n of more t
h
f
them are pri
v
to follow the
I
n 56 days, P
a
m
um investme
n
a prior stu
d
m
a tradition
a
to a social v
o
l
. (2016), in
t
e
ch start-up f
i
q
ually, in the
n
vesting inte
r
r
sion of Paulo
w
Roma
G TOWAR
D
i
ntends to ca
r
y
also known
n
the world,
i
e
n selected t
h
d
clone was
e
ristics, for
a
Paulownia.
T
l
e, and then t
h
a
ulownia So
c
common It
a
of its equit
y
h
t of the prev
i
to €80,000.
0
crowdfundin
r
s in its equ
i
h
an €9,000.0
0
v
ate individu
rules, the las
t
a
ulownia reg
i
n
t of 140,00
0
d
y of Vecch
i
l financial ap
o
cated enterp
r
t
he pre-seed
i
nancing as
w
early stage,
fi
r
venes in soci
a
w
nia Social Pro
j
D
S AN IMP
A
r
ry out concr
e
as SFR. The
i
ts qualitativ
e
h
e clone In V
i
genetically
e
a
daptability t
o
T
he company
h
e contributi
o
c
ial Project s
r
a
lian crowdi
n
y
, reflected
o
i
ous consider
a
0
0, really cau
t
g Assiteca
C
i
ty. In less t
h
0
, the Paulo
w
als and three
t
mile of the c
r
i
stered, via A
s
0
(the mean v
o
i
, Casalini,
a
proach and a
n
r
ise falls in th
e
and seed sta
g
w
ell as donors
fi
nancing ven
t
a
l impact ent
e
j
ect investors.
S
Milano
A
CT INVES
T
e
tely relate t
o
t
r
ees belong
t
e
skills, and
t
i
tro 112® (P
a
e
ngineered i
n
o
different t
y
intends to pr
o
o
n of biomas
s
r
l stood up t
n
vesting cam
p
o
n its equit
y
a
tions about
i
t
ious.
C
rowd platfo
r
h
an two mo
n
w
nia project
r
are compani
e
r
owdfunding
s
siteca Crow
d
o
lume of inve
a
nd Caselli
(
n
impact inv
e
e
middle of a
s
g
es, financin
g
and venture
p
t
ure capital i
n
e
rprise finan
c
S
ource: Self-el
a
T
ING LOGI
C
o
forestry in
S
t
o the Paulo
w
t
he very hig
h
a
tent: EU No.
n
the laborat
o
y
pes of soil a
n
o
ceed every
f
s
to roots.
he standard
b
p
aign offers
y
value. The
i
ts campaign,
r
m, reached t
h
n
ths (56 da
y
r
eached new
e
s; consideri
n
campaign
w
a
d
, a minimu
m
stment is abo
u
(
2016) inves
t
e
sting approa
c
s
eed stage an
d
g
family and
p
hilanthropy
n
tervenes in t
h
c
ing.
a
boration, 2016
Milano
Torino
Napoli
Palermo
Roma
C
27
S
icily, in the
w
nia species,
h
absorption
010881704
o
ry in 1972,
n
d different
f
our years to
b
ehavior of
23% of the
pre-money
is far under
h
e target of
y
s), with an
fundraising
n
g the Italian
a
s run by the
m
investment
u
t €43,333).
t
igating the
c
h, suggests
d
early stage
friends and
intervene in
h
e high-tech
.
EVOLUTION OF CROWDFUNDING TOWARDS AN IMPACT INVESTING LOGIC
28
The analysis of the campaign launched Paulownia Social Project shows, in Figure 1, how the distance
between creators and investors is non-influential. The authors noticed the heterogeneity of the geographical
background of the backers. The 12 investors who backed the entrepreneurial project came from different
regions across the Italian country. This information agrees with Agrawal et al.’s (2011) observations about
weight of distance perceived by individuals who interact through internet-based platforms applied to the
crowdfunding, meaning that geography dispersion within investors and between the start-up and investors is
not relevant.
Findings
This approach is expected to capture the complexity of the phenomenon.
This study leads the authors to recognize a new emerging shape for the equity crowdfunding. In fact, if the
need to reinvent the capitalism structure, leveraging on the shared value creation, identified the configuration of
impact investing, the democracy of the web and, in particular, of the equity crowdfunding platforms, open the
financial world to a new structure which allows taking advantage of the traditional limits of funds of investment.
Thus, both the capability to attract a great number of investors, according to Anderson’s (2006) long tail model,
and the social content of the project-to-fund, represent the push to move the crowd investment towards impact
investing.
Moreover, the experience of Paulownia highlights the tie between equity crowdfunding (or rather crowd
investment) and the traditional finance, which could be represented as a puzzle of pieces derived from the
corporate finance. In fact, following the evidence from the study of Miglietta, Pessione, and Servato (2012), the
case of Paulownia shows some similarities with the venture philanthropy. Miglietta et al. (2012) discussed
about the main characteristics that identify venture philanthropy:
(1) High relationship: venture philanthropists have intense relationships with stakeholders;
(2) Project financing: venture philanthropists, as well as venture capitalists, design and plan their
investment according to both the target and the alternatives (debt, equity, mezzanine capital, loans, etc.);
(3) Long-time support: a three to five years investing strategy;
(4) Non-financial support: a plus that goes over the simple financial support, in order to provide services
for planning, strategy, marketing, etc.;
(5) Organizing skills strengthening: financing operating costs to help companies to reach their goal and
survive along a long period horizon;
(6) Performance measurement.
It goes without saying that these venture philanthropy characteristics are close to the main peculiarities of
venture capital, business angels, and venture incubators.
Considering the investment volume for each investor and their kind of legal personality, the results
(see Table 2) underline similarities with the Italian venture capital market in 2015 (see Figure 2) and the first
Italian crowdfunding report (Osservatorio Crowdfunding, 2016) which shows how crowdfunding is able to
collect only a “small crowd” of investors strongly represented by holding companies, real estate companies,
business angels, and high net worth individuals.
Table 2
Legal
P
er
s
Project
Kind
JP
JP
PP
JP
PP
PP
PP
PP
PP
PP
PP
PP
Notes. PP =
P
The
c
enterprise
t
Casalini,
C
impact in
v
accepted t
h
6.6%
19.
3
Individ
u
Inv.
&
Famil
y
Office
s
EVOLUTI
O
s
onality, Ori
g
P
O
M
T
B
T
N
T
P
R
B
M
M
N
P
hysical perso
n
c
oexistence
o
t
o collect fin
a
C
usumano, a
n
v
estment fun
d
h
e social imp
a
16.3%
3
%18.6%
u
al
&
y
s
Welfare &
Pension
Funds
O
N OF CRO
W
g
in, Investme
n
P
aulownia Soci
a
O
rigin
M
ilano
T
orino
B
uccinasco (M
I
T
orino
N
apoli
T
rezzano sul N
a
P
iana degli Alb
a
R
oma
B
uccinasco (M
I
M
ilano
M
ilano
N
apoli
n
; JP = Juridic
a
Figure 2. Itali
a
o
f different l
e
a
ncial return
s
n
d Brusoni (2
d
s in Europ
e
a
ct challeng
e
43.1%
2
16.2%
Public
Sector and
Sovereign
Funds
W
DFUNDIN
n
t Amount, a
n
a
l Project
Am
14
0
3
0
I
) 15
5
0
15
a
viglio 35
a
nesi (PA) 5
0
5
0
I
) 2
0
3
0
5
0
35
52
0
8
0
a
l person. Sour
c
a
n venture capi
t
e
gal persona
l
s
, shows like
n
014) via the
O
e
, which gat
h
e
mainly with
2
.9%
8.
0
15.3%
Banks In
s
G TOWAR
D
n
d Business
S
ount
0
,000
0
,000
,000
0
,000
,000
,000
0
,000
0
,000
0
,000
0
,000
0
,000
,000
0
,000
0
,000
c
e: Assiteca Cr
o
t
al market in 2
0
l
ities, with t
h
n
ess with ital
i
O
ltre Ventur
e
h
ered an inv
e
a philanthro
p
0
%
21.2
%
11.7%
9
s
urance Fun
d
Fu
n
2014 201
D
S AN IMP
A
S
ector for Ea
c
Share
23.33
%
5.00
%
2.50
%
8.33
%
2.50
%
5.83
%
8.33
%
8.33
%
3.33
%
5%
8.33
%
5.83
%
86.67
%
13.33
%
100.00
%
o
wd, 2016.
0
14-2015. Sour
c
h
e common i
n
i
an impact in
v
e
experience,
e
stment com
m
p
ic mindset.
%
0.0%
9
.7%
3.6
%
d
s of
n
ds Other
Financi
a
Op.
5
A
CT INVES
T
c
h
P
aulowni
a
%
%
%
%
%
%
%
%
%
%
%
%
%
%
c
e: AIFI (2015
)
n
tention to i
n
v
esting fund
s
at the time
o
m
itment fro
m
0.9%
%
2.4%
a
l Bank
Foundation
s
T
ING LOGI
C
a
Investor
Sector
Holding co
m
Real estate
n.d.
Property m
a
n.d.
n.d.
n.d.
n.d.
n.d.
n.d.
n.d.
n.d.
Shareholde
r
)
.
n
vest in a s
o
s
as describe
d
o
f writing on
e
m
equity inv
0.1%
0
2.3%
s
Industrial
Groups
C
29
m
pany
a
nagement
r
s/projectors
o
cial impact
d
by Vecchi,
e
of the fi
r
st
estors, who
0
.9%0.9%
Other
EVOLUTION OF CROWDFUNDING TOWARDS AN IMPACT INVESTING LOGIC
30
The success of Paulownia crowdfunding campaign agrees with a prior study of some of the authors
(Parente, Feola, & Marinato, 2015) in which they compared the results of 16 successful and unsuccessful
campaigns, noticing that successful campaigns have at least one patent, even if it cannot be considered a success
predictor (see Table 3), but mainly, it could be considered as a catalyst of financial resources (see Figure 3).
Table 3
A Comparison Between Campaigns
Average no. of patent
Successful 1.2
Unsuccessful 3.8
Note. Source: Self-elaboration, 2016.
Figure 3. Total and average volume of financial resources attracted by successful campaigns,
classified by patent registration or not. Source: Self-elaboration, 2016.
Moreover, according to the case studied, a successful campaign has shown a shorter campaign duration
and the capability to attract financial resources faster (see Figure 4). In fact, Paulownia was able, as above
quoted, to collect the whole financial resources in 56 days.
Figure 4. Crowdfunding campaign average duration, in months. Source: Self-elaboration, 2015.
€231,406
€694,217
€73,610 €147,219
Average Total Average Total
Patent No Patent
1.6
4.6
Successful Unsuccessful
Average Duration (months)
EVOLUTION OF CROWDFUNDING TOWARDS AN IMPACT INVESTING LOGIC
31
On the financial side, it is interesting to see how Paulownia s.r.l. adopted option contacts typical of
traditional equity financing, as a shareholders concession: in the end of the 5th, the 10th and the 15th exercise,
following that on which the capital increase has been realized, and for the consecutive 30 days, retail investors
have the right to sell their own shares to the founders at the subscription price, plus a 7%, up to a cumulative
maximum of 30% of the subscribed equity. Within 30 days’ exercise on put option, the founders could exercise
the right to buy all the investors’ shares that exerted on put option at the same price.
Conclusion
Thus, considering the fundraising performances of Paulownia, equity crowdfunding platforms act like an
equity market place that links the seed stage financing to early stage financing and it implies that the authors’
intuition about a change in the shape of crowdinvesting is correct. In fact, the investors operations suggest a
translation of equity crowdfunding, also known as crowdinvesting, towards impact investing.
Summarizing, the authors understood that crowdfunding could be helpful to both raise financial-based
resources for innovative companies and produce social outcomes to the benefit of all the interested communities.
Moreover, this research could help both entrepreneurs (especially innovative companies) and crowdfunding
platform owner, to set up an effective and succeeding crowdfunding industry.
Further Research
The authors initially intend to enlarge the sample, including all innovative start-ups. This would be useful
to conduct a quantitative research, in order to understand better the role of crowdfunding, the importance of a
social attitude as a quality sign and the evolution of this fundraising mechanism towards the impact investing.
Then, the authors suggest mapping the crowdfunding phenomenon across the Europe, in the way to start a case
study within different countries to understand how cultural aspects and regulations affect the evolution of
crowdfunding in a specific country.
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