Crowdfunding innovative but risky new ventures: the importance of less ambiguous tone

Financial Innovation

Table 1 Descriptive statistics

Variable	Cleantech sample		Non-cleantech sample		Mean difference t-test
Variable	Mean	SD	Mean	SD	Diff	t-value
Success	0.370	0.483	0.276	0.447	0.094	6.542***
Money pledged	7.970	2.991	6.697	3.669	1.273	14.102***
Uncertain (%)	0.637	0.395	0.699	0.522	−0.062	−5.152***
Weak modal (%)	0.343	0.258	0.356	0.346	−0.013	−1.616***
Funding goal	10.177	1.086	10.088	1.093	0.089	2.747***
Duration	3.536	0.254	3.535	0.284	0.001	0.099
Rewards	2.215	0.558	2.004	0.621	0.211	12.618***
Quick updates	0.421	0.494	0.342	0.474	0.079	5.362***
Comment quantity	1.717	1.709	1.378	1.724	0.339	6.645***
Backer sentiment	0.523	0.451	0.371	0.459	0.152	11.278***
Featured	0.154	0.361	0.100	0.300	0.054	5.023***
Social network	0.460	0.906	0.348	0.813	0.112	4.141***
ARI	9.652	2.749	9.739	3.788	−0.087	−1.041
Total words	6.894	0.663	6.450	0.821	0.444	22.186***
Net positive	0.883	0.961	0.706	1.303	0.177	6.067***
Risk index	1.922	0.894	2.091	0.861	−0.169	−6.357***
Video	4.589	1.504	4.002	1.982	0.588	12.883***
Image	2.415	1.164	1.859	1.358	0.556	15.871***
Observations	1172		26,209

This table provides descriptive statistics of all variables in our analysis. The sample period is from January 2013 to October 2018 and the sample covers 1172 cleantech crowdfunding projects launched on the Kickstarter platform. To make a comparison, this tale also provides descriptive statistics for the matched non-cleantech crowdfunding projects launched during the same period on the Kickstarter platform