Attention Across Borders : Investor Attention as a Driver of Cross-Border Equity Crowdfunding Investments

Digital equity crowdfunding platforms have brought an unprecedented number of international investment opportunities to investors' reach. Although most equity crowdfunding investments are still made domestically, cross-border investments often have a decisive role for campaign success. We therefore ask what drives cross-border investments and theorize how investors' attention directs their investment choices. Using a unique dataset, we leverage several complementary approaches to show that companies' ability to catch investors' attention strongly drives cross-border investments. First, our campaign-level analyses highlight the importance of international visibility for receiving cross-border investments. Second, our dyadic investment-level analyses show positive effects of campaign visibility in investor countries and entrepreneur-investor co-nationality on tie formation. Third, our randomized field experiment shows that company-investor co-nationality increases prospective investors' responsiveness to a cross-border investment opportunity