Equity Crowdfunding in Germany and the UK: Follow-Up Funding and Firm Survival

Today, start-ups often obtain financing via the Internet through many small contributions of non-sophisticated investors. Yet little is known about whether these start-ups can ultimately build enduring businesses. In this paper, we hand-collected data from 38 different equity crowdfunding (ECF) portals and 656 firms that ran at least one successful ECF campaign in Germany or the United Kingdom. The evidence shows that German firms that receive ECF stand a higher chance of obtaining follow-up funding through business angels or venture capitalists and have a relatively lower likelihood to survive. We find firm age, the average age of the management team, and excessive funding during the ECF campaign all have a negative effect on firms’ likelihood to obtain post-campaign financing. By contrast, the number of senior managers, registered trademarks, subsequent successful ECF campaigns, crowd exits, and the amount of the funding target all have a positive impact. Subsequent successful ECF campaigns, crowd exits, and the number of venture capital investors are significant predictors reducing firm failure. Finally, we find that some of these factors have a differential impact for Germany and the United Kingdom

Functional hyperbranched macromolecules constructed from acetylenic triple-bond building blocks

This review article summarizes the synthetic efforts in constructing functional hyperbranched macromolecules from acetylenic triple-bond building blocks. Polymerization reactions including polycoupling, polyaddition and polycyclotrimerization have been developed for the synthesis of new hyperbranched polymers such as polyynes, polyenes, polyarylenes and polytriazoles with novel topological structures and electronic conjugations. Polymers with high molecular weights (up to > 1 x 10(6)) have been obtained in high yields (up to 100\%). Whilst their linear counterparts are often intractable, the hyperbranched conjugated polymers are completely soluble in common organic solvents and are hence readily processable by macroscopic techniques. The hyperbranched polymers exhibit an array of functional properties including strong light emission, stable optical nonlinearity and high photorefractivity. The polymers can generate fluorescent images, assemble into supramolecular patterns, and form well-aligned nanotubes. The polyynes can be post-functionalized through metal complexation, whose refractive indexes can be manipulated to a great extent by photoirradiation. The hyperbranched polymer complexes can serve as precursors to soft ferromagnetic ceramics and as catalysts for carbon nanotube fabrications

Acetylenes with multiple triple bonds: A group of versatile A(n)-type building blocks for the construction of functional hyperbranched polymers

AB(n)-type monomers have been widely used for the synthesis of hyperbranched polymers. These monomers, however, suffer from the problems associated with the tendency of their mutually reactive A and B functional groups toward self-oligomerization. We have explored the possibility of synthesizing hyperbranched polymers using A(n)-type monomers, which are stable and easy to prepare and handle, with some being even commercially available. In particular, we have tried to open new synthetic routes to hyperbranched polymers using diynes and triynes as monomers. We have developed metallic [TaBr5, Cp{*}Ru(PPh3)(2)Cl, etc.] and nonmetallic catalysts (piperidine, DMF, etc.) for polycyclotrimerization, polycycloaddition and polycoupling of the acetylenic monomers. We have synthesized a variety of new hyperbranched polymers including polyarylenes, polytriazoles and polydiynes with high molecular weights and excellent solubility in high yields. The polymers exhibit an array of functional properties such as sensitive photonic response, high light refractivity, large optical nonlinearity, high thermal stability, strong optical limiting power and unusual aggregation-enhanced light emission. Utilizing these unique properties, we succeeded in generating fluorescent images, honeycomb patterns, polymer nanotubes, ferromagnetic ceramics, and nanoparticle catalysts. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved