Crowdfunding in Europe

Crowdfunding is becoming an increasingly popular method to finance projects of every kind and scale. This contributed volume is one of the earliest books presenting scientific and research-based perspectives of crowdfunding, its development, and future. The European Crowdfunding Network (ECN) and its scientific work group, together with FGF e.V., invited both researchers and practitioners to contribute to this first state-of-the-art edited volume on crowdfunding in Europe. This book contributes to a better comprehension of crowdfunding, encourages further fundamental research and contributes to a systematization of this new field of research. The book also features expert contributions by practitioners to enhance and complement the scientific perspective. This book can be used as a guideline and shall advance classification in an emerging research field.                                                                     

Dennis Bruntje is research assistant at the Media and Communication Management Group at Technische Universitat Ilmenau, Germany. Together with his team he has conducted a wide range of studies related to crowdfunding, media management and entrepreneurship. Furthermore, the Group advises and scientifically supports various crowdfunding platforms, projects and start-ups. Dennis is head of the Scientific Work Group on crowdfunding at the European Crowdfunding Network. In his PhD thesis he focuses on intermediation by platforms in equity-based crowdfunding. He has several years of experience in business financing, from establishing a venture capital company, his research and initiating a local start-up initiative.

Oliver Gajda is the founding Chairman and Executive Director at the European Crowdfunding Network, Belgium. He is a member of the European Crowdfunding Stakeholder Forum at the European Commission and Advisory Board member at Förderkreis Gründungsforschung e.V. (FGF). He works as hands-on operational and strategic consultant with innovative businesses. The past decade, Oliver has worked with venture capital, microfinance, technology and social entrepreneurship in both commercial and non-profit settings in Europe and the USA. As former journalist, he started his career in the early 1990s in the publishing and business information industries. Oliver holds Masters degrees from Solvay Business School and from the University of Hamburg and studied at SEESS (UCL) in London.