How Do the Crowdfunders Judge the Crowdfunded?

Abstract

This chapter addresses the reactions from communities of early supporters of companies turning from participative forms of financing to classical venture capital and/or buyouts by blue chip firms. Through the study of two recent cases of major crowdfunding successes, namely Oculus VR, a Californian company which obtained nearly $2.5 Million in an exemplary Kickstarter campaign and was later bought by Facebook for $2 Billion, and Mojang, a Swedish company formed to manage the unprecedented success of a video game, Minecraft, sold to supporters from its unfinished versions, the firm being later purchased by Microsoft for $2.5 Billion. Both of these companies had to manage the changes in the nature of their relationships with their early supporters. This chapter proposes typologies of potentially harmful changes induced by attempts to transform bonding social capital into bridging social capital, as well as countermeasures available to entrepreneur to control the effects of such situations.