New Form of Financing: Crowdfunding Opportunities Among Start-up Companies in Turkey

Dr. Betül Açıkgöz

Abstract

Crowdfunding is a new type of financial support from masses to accomplish a project such as an audio album, a software program, a social responsibility movement or a product design. This could be in the form of a reward, fund-raising activity, equity or debt. Crowdfunding is a recent valuable method to finance the operations of newly established startup companies. Startup companies who hold bright ideas but lacking of external funds to carry out their projects are in need of financial sources. They usually finance their projects by using their personal savings or simply apply to get bank credits, subsidies or grants from government agencies, angel investors or joint ventures. To clear away the financial challenges, crowdfunding provides low cost finance by collecting little amounts of funds from a number of investors. In this kind of financing, the financial institutions such as banks particularly transaction fees are eliminated. The creditor and the startup company meets on the internet platform. Although it is a very new application in emerging markets, the crowdfunding is of very broad use in the US and Europe. This study aims to provide various experiences from emerging markets about the crowdfunding and its contribution on new investments and the economic development by start-up companies which are located in Turkey. 

Short Bio

Dr. Betül Açıkgöz is an assistant professor of accounting at Bozok University. Prior to joining Bozok University, she had her post-doctoral studies at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey in the USA.  Dr. Acikgoz started her academic studies at Adnan Menderes University and worked as a research and teaching assistant from 2004 to 2008. Dr. Betül Açıkgöz received full scholarship from Turkish National Education Ministry during her graduate studies. She got her Ph.D. in Accounting from  Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey  in 2015. She holds her M.Sc. in Accountancy from University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and B.Sc. in Business Administration from Gazi University. Her research interests are mainly towards the financial accounting, auditing and accounting history.  She works as a part-time assistant professor and gives financial accounting, auditing, managerial accounting and cost accounting courses at Abdullah Gül University and Atılım University.

Venue

Thursday, April 18, 2019, at 1.30 pm, Sümerbank Building Room 106