Crowdfunding as an alternative option for financing of startups in Ukraine

Abstract

The article gives a general description of “crowdfunding”, and presents his interpretation proposed by various scholars. The authors have investigated crowdfunding as an alternative financing of startups, features and main obstacles to the functioning of Ukrainian crowdfunding platforms. The crowdfunding scheme allows to finance a developer project, including an arbitrary amount of donors, while having a minimum amount of contribution. The peculiarity of Ukrainian crowdfunding is there are only a few Kraudfanding platforms, which are more directed to humanitarian, social, environmental and cultural projects, the cost of which is relatively small. At the same time, Ukrainian projects, which have a purely commercial purpose, are placed on foreign platforms, and that leads to exit of successful business over the territory of Ukraine. In order to overcome such an outflow of ideas and funds, it is necessary to create a legislative framework in the field of crowdfunding in matters of responsibility and preservation of rights and obligations of the participants, as well as formation of a culture of national financing among Ukrainians.