Crowdfunding’s Potential in the Caribbean : A Preliminary Assessment

World Bank

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: CROWDFUNDING;    SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES;    MICROFINANCE;    ACCESS TO FINANCE;    PRIVATE SECTOR FINANCE;   

RP-ID  :  136515

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Among the multitude of barriers togrowing businesses, access to finance is a principalchallenge faced by Caribbean enterprises. infoDev’sEntrepreneurship program for innovation in the Caribbean(EPIC) Access to finance component aims to develop aninnovative access to finance program for growth-orientedCaribbean entrepreneurs. The focus is on building thepipeline of investment-ready enterprises through trainingand mentoring, as well as strengthening investors’ overallcapacity to engage in innovative financing mechanisms, suchas angel investing and crowdfunding. Over the past fewyears, there has been experimental use of crowdfunding byexisting small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and start-upsin the Caribbean. Crowdfunding leverages Internet technologyand offers a new path to capital formation that may mitigatesome challenges, including geographic isolation and thelimited size of local addressable customer and capitalmarkets. This report’s scope is a preliminary assessment ofthe potential viability of crowdfunding in the Caribbean,which serves as an initial step for further research. Thisstudy presents recommendations for developing the frameworkfor crowdfunding in the Caribbean that can benefit bothexisting SMEs as well as start-ups.