Abstract:

There is a general agreement that new entrepreneurs, including young people, has a significant problem in access to external sources of capital. It regards also academic entrepreneurship. It derives from the theories of asymmetric information and credit rationing. Therefore, there are many studies about new ways of financing enterprises such as crowdfunding. It is a new subject of analysis in the literature. However, there is a dearth of studies about crowdfunding in academic entrepreneurship. Moreover, most of research regards only one country. In connection to this, the aim of the paper is to analyze the usefulness of crowdfunding as a tool of financing academic entrepreneurship on examples from Poland and Finland. These countries belongs to the European Union so the legal basis is similar. In the study the following methods of research was used: desk research, SWOT analysis and World Café method. The results suggest there are similar strengths and weaknesses of crowdfunding in academic entrepreneurship in both countries. However, there are significant differences in case of opportunities and threats. The conclusion could be of a great importance for lawmakers and officials responsible for supervision of financial market as well as support for entrepreneurs.