Effects of social influence on crowdfunding performance: implications of the covid-19 pandemic

Abstract By analyzing a comprehensive dataset of 467 crowdfunding campaigns from the Spanish platform Goteo over the period 2019–2020, our article empirically examines the impact of COVID-19 outbreak on the crowdfunding projects performance. In light of the close link between social networks and crowdfunding, we provide evidence that the strength of the social influence on the crowdfunding campaign’s performance has changed in this pandemic period. Our results show that the founder’s dynamism and the number of comments exchanged between stakeholders had a stronger impact on the crowdfunding performance during the COVID-19 crisis. We also find that investors, during this period, are more inclined to contribute to social projects with small amounts. The study findings can serve as an interesting guide for entrepreneurs, policy makers and platform managers to improve the crowdfunding performance.