Do multiple competing offerings on a crowdfunding platform influence investment behavior?

The aim of this study is to investigate crowd investor behavior when competing offerings are simultaneously published on an online platform. The behaviors explored are choice avoidance, the 1/n heuristic, and herding, which can be influenced by the number of concurrent offerings. This analysis is based on a sample of 2,592 investors that have participated in 50 campaigns on an Italian equity crowdfunding platform between 2016 and 2018. We find that the presence of competing offerings influences the amount invested and, to a lesser extent, the investment decision, while the exposure to heuristics varies among investors’ profiles. Moreover, selectors and serial investors are those with a lower exposure to heuristics, whereas early and late investors are subject to herding when multiple campaigns are published on a platform. This study has implications for entrepreneurs and platform managers in terms of crowdfunding portal selection and information design.