The role of venture capitalists in reward-based crowdfunding: a game-theoretical analysis

Most entrepreneurs seek VC funding after the reward-based crowdfunding campaign succeeds, and venture capitalists (VCs) can contribute to the project in two aspects: investment and operational expertise. With a game-theoretical model, we find that entrepreneurs face twelve possible scenarios contingent on the mass market revenue and revenue share, including the six scenarios wherein neither side exerts effort to complete the project. To attract VC funding and ensure the project completion after a campaign success, entrepreneurs should set the funding goal above a certain threshold. Specifically, we identify three ranges of the revenue share and derive the lower bound for the funding goal in each range. However, we notice that entrepreneurs prefer a low funding goal to promise the campaign success and the optimal goal will be the lower bound in each range. Moreover, we show that the revenue share is decisive to the role of VCs in the project. If the entrepreneur’s share exceeds a high threshold, the venture capitalist becomes a pure investor with no incentive to exert effort, similar to the role of banks; if the share is less than a low threshold, the entrepreneur won’t follow up but transfers the project, and the VC investor will be a project owner; if the share stays medium, the VC investor acts as a partner and there may exist “free-riding”. In the extension, we consider the revenue share an endogenous and analyse the role of VCs further. Interestingly, the VC investor prefers to own the project and occupy all revenue in mass market, while the entrepreneur treats the inefficient venture capitalist as a pure investor and the efficient one as a partner. In addition, when cooperating with efficient VCs, the entrepreneur is more likely to enlarge her share as the mass market revenue increases.