Determinants of reward crowdfunding success: Evidence from Covid-19 pandemic

This study examines the impact of quality signals as proxied by third party recognition, videos, photos, GIFs, online presence, and general disclosure; and signals of trust proxied by risk disclosure, location of fundraisers, team effort and recent funding success on reward crowdfunding success. In addition, the analysis investigates and provides new evidence on the moderating effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the relationship between the two types of signaling and funding success. Using data from of 21,270 campaigns posted on Kickstarter over the period July 2019 to July 2020, logistic regression models indicate a statistically significant relationship between quality/trust signals and campaigns’ funding success. Interestingly, we find that using diverse multimedia content, providing extensive information disclosure, involving a team of creators and having a track record of previous successful funding are significant determinants of reward crowdfunding success. On the contrary, the use of photos and disclosure of online presence have significant adverse effect on the likelihood of funding success. The findings also suggest that the external shock of Covid-19 pandemic only has significant interactive effects on the reward crowdfunding success for two signaling proxies, viz. Extent of risk information disclosure and external URL presence. Our findings are robust to the Difference-in-Differences model check and a range of other robustness tests.