| The establishment of Angel Crunch,the first equity crowdfunding platform in 2011,marked the formal entry of equity crowdfunding into China,followed by the emergence of equity crowdfunding platforms such as Dajiatou and 36Kr.In the 2014 government work report,Prime Minister Li Ke qiang proposed to launch a trial of equity crowdfunding to promote the development of equity crowdfunding in China into the fast lane.However,due to the influence of information asymmetry,equity crowdfunding parties and mass investors face many obstacles when making investment and financing decisions.Financing parties often have problems in financing and low financing success rates,and investors lack of investment experience and collection.Due to the high time and cost of investment project information,it is difficult to find a suitable investment project.The existence of these problems hinders the further development of equity crowdfunding.Based on this,China’s equity crowdfunding platform generally adopts the system of "lead investment+follow investment":the equity crowdfunding platform invites investors with strong financial strength,rich investment experience,or possesses certain professional skills to take the lead in investing;other investors lack investment experience.A mechanism for investment by ordinary investors who have professional skills but have certain financial strength based on the basic conditions of the lead investor.In the process of equity crowdfunding,can the introduction of leading investment mechanism effectively reduce the information asymmetry between investment and financing?Will the implementation of the lead mechanism really improve the project financing results and increase the financing success rate?The research is centered on these issues of the leading investment mechanism.This article first sorts out the past scholars’ research on equity crowdfunding and leading investment mechanism and related literature;then it analyzes the information asymmetry in equity crowdfunding in China and the role of the leading investment mechanism in the equity crowdfunding process.The theoretical analysis of the role of information transfer was conducted,and the research hypotheses were put forward from the aspects of equity crowdfunding financial performance and leading investment amount,amount of follow-up investment,number of follow-up investors,minimum starting investment amount,and financing target.Finally,the paper selected 2016-2017 the relevant data of the three well-known major equity crowdfunding platforms in China used multiple linear regression models to conduct empirical research on the samples.Empirical studies have found that the investment amount of a leader can indeed increase the financing contribution rate of crowdfunding projects.At the same time,the project’s target amount of financing and the number of investors involved will also have a significant impact on the financing of the project.These research conclusions show that in equity crowdfunding,the introduction of the leading investment mechanism can indeed play a role in signal transmission between the project financing parties and investors,and to a certain extent,reduce the impact of information asymmetry.The further development of equity crowdfunding has certain significance.At the same time,equity crowdfunding projects have some reference and practical value in improving the financing efficiency and financing success rate in the financing process. |
