Motivating signals to participate in Equity Crowdfunding in IRAN

Information asymmetry between business owners and investors is a common problem in all investments, but this problem becomes more apparent in equity crowdfunding because potential investors in equity crowdfunding are generally non-professional investors and do not have enough time and experience to scrutinize the investment plan. Therefore, based on the received signals, they decide on the quality of the designs and ultimately their participation / non-participation. The purpose of this study is to comprehensively identify these signals and their sources and also to measure their effectiveness.This is a mixed research in which, qualitative data were gathered through semi structured interviews and analyzed with thematic analyze method. Quantitative part of the research forms the main part of it and contains a descriptive survey which its data were analyzed by second order confirmatory factor analysis. Based on the results, three sources of signals, respectively including: ECF platform, third parties and business owners and are involved in motivating investors to participate, and for each source, four effective signals were identified.