2015CF – Crowdfunding Industry Report

Crowdsourcing.org: Global crowdfunding experienced accelerated growth in 2014, expanding by 167 percent to reach $16.2 billion raised, up from $6.1 billion in 2013. In 2015, the industry is set to more than double once again, on its way to raising $34.4 billion. These are the figures from Massolution’s highly anticipated 2015CF – Crowdfunding Industry Report, which was released today. Thanks to our sponsors, the first 50 copies of the report can be purchased at half price with the code FIRST50.

The strong growth in 2014 was due in part to the rise of Asia as a major crowdfunding region. Asian crowdfunding volumes grew by 320 percent, to $3.4 billion raised. That puts the region slightly ahead of Europe ($3.26 billion) as the second-biggest region by crowdfunding volume. North America continued to lead the world in crowdfunding volumes, growing by 145 percent and raising a total of $9.46 billion.

The research team collected information on 1250 active crowdfunding platforms (CFPs) across the world, including high-quality data submitted by 463 CFPs to the Crowdfunding Industry Survey, before undertaking significant further research and analysis in order to reach its results.

While rewards- and equity-based campaigns typically get the most headlines, it’s lending-based crowdfunding that dominates the industry: in 2014, it raised $11.08 billion dollars.

Part of that, according to Massolution founder and CEO Carl Esposti, is explained by the strong growth of crowd-based lending in Asia: “Surprises materializing from this year’s research included the astounding growth in the P2P and P2B lending market in Asia, stemming largely from the Chinese market.”

This is the second major report Massolution, Crowdsourcing.org’s sister firm, released this month: just a few weeks ago, it published its 2015CF – RE Crowdfunding for Real Estate Report, which takes a close look at one of the hottest sectors of crowdfunding.

Business and entrepreneurship remained as the most popular crowdfunding category, collecting $6.7 billion in 2014, which represents 41.3 percent of total crowdfunding volume. Social causes ($3.06 billion), films and performing arts ($1.97), real estate ($1.01 billion), and music and recording arts ($736 million) rounded out the top five categories.

The report contains hundreds of insights that will be of use to anyone interested in crowdfunding and how it’s poised to grow in the coming years. In addition to the figures above, the report also contains data and analysis on:

  • the market shares of top five and top ten crowdfunding platforms in North America and Europe,
  • CFP leaderboards by region,
  • growth in the number of and worldwide distribution of platforms,
  • average deal size for each crowdfunding model,
  • campaign success rates,
  • the 15 major crowdfunding trends and developments,
  • and much more!

You can purchase a licensed copy of the report here. Publication of the report was supported by lead research sponsors GoFundMe,Wealth Migrate, and DST Systems. Courtesy of our sponsors, 50 copies of the report are available at 50 percent off list price using coupon code FIRST50.