In a first of its kind study, the Program for Innovation in Entrepreneurial and Social Finance, at the College of Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, released a primer on the size of the crowdfund investing market.
Professor Lee Fleming, Faculty Director of the Fung Institute, Academic Director of the Program and contributing author said, “While estimating the size of the future and currently non-existent market is a hazardous endeavor at best, we have presented a set of data, assumptions, and estimations that may prove useful. From the lenses of Angels, VCs and Small Business lending we believe a market as large as $3.98B per year could rapidly evolve.”
“While Venture Capitalist Fred Wilson added credibility to the concept of crowdfund investing by predicting crowdfund investing could amount to a $300B market, we believe that the market size may be much smaller yet equally impactful” said Sherwood Neiss, co-founder of the Program for Innovation in Entrepreneurial and Social Finance and co-author of the size of market report. “The potential is not only measured in dollars funded but also in the numbers of businesses started and jobs created.”
The Fung Institute for Engineering Leadership, based out of the College of Engineering, has a mission to establish the world’s leading academic and applied research; teaching and policy regarding innovations in how entrepreneurs and small to medium sized businesses are funded. The Program for Innovation in Entrepreneurial and Social Finance was launched in November 2012 to study the impact of new financing mechanisms such as crowdfunding.
