The Drivers of Successful Crowdfunding Projects in Africa during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The challenge of accessing finance by entrepreneurs from traditional financial sources is pervasive. The COVID-19 pandemic further exacerbated the problem of limited access to finance from banks. Against this backdrop, the objective of the study was to determine the factors driving crowdfunding success during the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa. The ordinary least squares (OLS) and probit regression models were estimated to analyse 215 crowdfunding projects in Africa. The results of the study documented that targeted amounts (TA), comments (CMM), and the COVID-19 pandemic were negative and significant drivers of crowdfunding success. Furthermore, duration (DRN) was negative and significantly affected crowdfunding success. Conversely, images (IM), videos (VD), backers (BCK), and updates (UPD) were positive and significantly affected crowdfunding success. The study contributes to the body of knowledge by investigating the drivers of crowdfunding success during the COVID-19 pandemic period, which hitherto had not been extensively researched.