Experience Breaks Down Distance Barriers in Crowdfunding Investments
A new study of over 100,000 crowdfunding investments finds that seasoned funders overcome geographical bias—investing farther from home as they gain experience. The discovery challenges assumptions about how distance shapes investment behavior and suggests that familiarity, not location, drives funding decisions in emerging finance platforms.
Originaltitel: Does Home Bias Persist?:The Effect of Funder Experience on Home Bias
Increasing geographical distance has been shown to reduce consumers’ and investors’ likelihood of purchasing or investing in specific products or services. It is less understood whether such distance sensitivity persists when consumers and investors gain experience. Using a panel dataset covering 23,179 backers and 104,186 investments within reward- and lending-based crowdfunding, we find that funder experience positively moderates the negative effect of distance in both forms of crowdfunding.