CrowdDiligence Insights
Independent commentary on equity crowdfunding, investor protection under the EU Crowdfunding Regulation (ECSPR) and the practice of structured, crowd-sourced due diligence. Articles are written by the CrowdDiligence team and are free to read.
What we write about
- Methodology — how weighted topic scoring, bias management and DD Lead verification work in practice.
- Regulation — ECSPR rules, key investment information sheets (KIIS) and retail-investor protection across the EU.
- Market commentary — observations from European equity crowdfunding platforms and campaigns we cover.
Latest articles
- AI Is Changing Crowdfunding. But Are We Building Better Decisions? — After 15 years in crowdfunding, Michael Eis examines how AI can support project creators, regulatory due diligence for ECSPs and independent investment analysis - and why human judgement must remain central.
- Reddit Can Spot Crowdfunding Failures. The Equity Question Is More Interesting. — New peer-reviewed research finds that critical online communities can identify reward crowdfunding campaigns that later fail to deliver. The study is not about equity crowdfunding. But the mechanism it uncovers raises an obvious question: could independent crowd scrutiny also reveal investment risks before an equity round closes?
- Equity Crowdfunding Investors Don't Look for Winners First. They Look for Reasons to Say No — New research shows equity crowdfunding investors do not start by hunting for winners. They start by eliminating deal-killers. Here is why downside screening dominates early-stage decisions, and what it means for how due diligence should be organised.
- SEC Reg CF Offerings Are Live on CrowdDiligence — Browse live US equity crowdfunding offerings sourced from SEC EDGAR, see reported financial figures at a glance, and become a DD Lead to start a collaborative review.
- "Backed by Angels" Is Not Due Diligence — Campaign badges look like validation, but a signal is not evidence. A practical audit for separating social proof from documented quality.
- A Successful Crowdfunding Round Changes Your Governance - Nominee or Not — Peer-reviewed research on 602 UK crowdfunded companies finds boards grow significantly after the round. The nominee structure does not prevent it.
- Crowdfunding Doesn't Democratise Capital If the Entry Ticket Is Still the Right Network — A new working paper on hybrid staging suggests equity crowdfunding may move selection earlier rather than remove it. The platform is open to investors - access for founders is not.
- Access Was Democratised. Decisions Were Not. — Europe built the distribution and legal infrastructure for equity crowdfunding, but not the decision layer. What EU reports and academic research say about the information asymmetry retail investors still face - and the gap CrowdDiligence is trying to close.
- Only 8% of European Crowdfunding Is Cross-Border. That's a Market Problem, Not a Rules Problem. — Three years into ECSPR, legal passporting works but capital still stays home. The bottleneck is not the rulebook - it is the missing information and decision infrastructure around the offers.
- Europe Built a Cross-Border Crowdfunding Market. Investors Didn't Go Cross-Border. — New research shows geographic home bias survives even after investors find and study an offering. ECSPR solved distribution. It did not solve the investor's ability to verify a company 2,000 kilometres away.