Publication: Crowdfunding’s Potential in the Caribbean: A Preliminary Assessment
Date
2017-12-31
ISSN
Published
2017-12-31
Author(s)
World Bank
Abstract
Among the multitude of barriers to
growing businesses, access to finance is a principal
challenge faced by Caribbean enterprises. infoDev’s
Entrepreneurship program for innovation in the Caribbean
(EPIC) Access to finance component aims to develop an
innovative access to finance program for growth-oriented
Caribbean entrepreneurs. The focus is on building the
pipeline of investment-ready enterprises through training
and mentoring, as well as strengthening investors’ overall
capacity to engage in innovative financing mechanisms, such
as angel investing and crowdfunding. Over the past few
years, there has been experimental use of crowdfunding by
existing small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and start-ups
in the Caribbean. Crowdfunding leverages Internet technology
and offers a new path to capital formation that may mitigate
some challenges, including geographic isolation and the
limited size of local addressable customer and capital
markets. This report’s scope is a preliminary assessment of
the potential viability of crowdfunding in the Caribbean,
which serves as an initial step for further research. This
study presents recommendations for developing the framework
for crowdfunding in the Caribbean that can benefit both
existing SMEs as well as start-ups.
Citation
“World Bank. 2017. Crowdfunding’s Potential in the Caribbean: A Preliminary Assessment. © World Bank, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31609 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”