Crowdfunding in Finland - A new alternative disruptive funding instrument for businesses

Abstract

The phenomenon of the crowd on the Internet is widely well known, as well as its collaborative power. Companies use the power of the crowd to improve their products, for marketing campaigns, or co-create their products in collaboration with the consumer. Recently a new phenomenon emerged - crowdfunding (CF). Platforms such as Kickstarter assist to raise funds for various projects. In Finland very successful ventures, such as e.g. Timo Vuorensola's campaigns for the new movie Iron Sky demonstrated the possibilities. Within the scope of this research work we elaborate the power of crowdfunding, and particularly explore its possibilities in the Finnish context. We conducted a qualitative study based on interviews to explore crowdfunding as alternative mechanism to existing fundraising mechanism, pinpoint to legal pitfalls, risks, and benefits for entrepreneurs. The study rounds up with a thorough discussion how crowdfunding can be a disruption for traditional financing mechanisms in Finland. Copyright © 2013 ACM.