The debt-equity choice in crowdfunding: a two-method approach

Securities-based crowdfunding has evolved into an important source of financing for small and medium-sized enterprises (SME), but little is known about how crowdfunding campaigns fit into the capital structure decisions of SMEs. Combining insights from SME capital structure and crowdfunding literatures results in high ambiguity, as crowdfunding seems to change SME financing dynamics, but in an uncertain direction. We construct variables based on previous work on SME capital structure literature to empirically test which characteristics help explain the choice to seek either equity or debt funding among firms using crowdfunding. We use 713 equity and 403 debt campaign announcements registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission under Regulation Crowdfunding. Our empirical procedure includes both the traditionally used logistic regression method as well as a random forest classifier. We find that less-established firms with smaller funding needs are more likely to issue equity, whereas firms with strong growth momentum and larger funding needs prefer debt.