Crowdfunding and Initial Coin Offering (ICO) enable entrepreneurs to raise capital from the crowds. Despite the large number of backers, these campaigns fail at a higher rate than they succeed. According to Kickstarter, the success rate of projects launched on the platform as of July 2022 is approximately 40%. Thus, identifying the factors contributing to the success of startups on these two platforms is of paramount importance. As with crowdfunding campaigns, which present their ideas in the form of stories and videos on their web pages on crowdfunding portals (e.g., Kickstarter), ICOs introduce their ideas in the form of whitepapers. By analyzing these sources of information and extracting informative features, we can gain a better understanding of the reasons for the success or failure of these campaigns. Through the use of natural language processing (NLP), econometric and machine learning models, this dissertation aims to analyze the content of crowdfunding campaigns and ICO whitepapers.In the first essay, through applying natural language processing, we illustrate how entrepreneurial narratives could serve as a powerful vehicle to influence the funding outcomes of ICOs. We show that the structure of whitepapers is effective in reducing the information asymmetry between ICO founders and backers leading to increased amounts of funds raised.

In the second essay, we examine the impact of existing campaigns on the success of upcoming campaigns. Specifically, we study how future campaigns can learn from prior campaigns and how they are affected by competition through the presence of concurrent campaigns. We propose a Varying Coefficient Model - a natural alternative to linear models where coefficients are expected to change across different groups – to analyze these effects. Precisely, we study how the magnitude of these effects changes over time and their contributions to prediction performance.

In the third essay, we propose a multimodal model that incorporates visual features of videos with textual features from project descriptions as well as campaign-level features. Our study examines the contribution of pitch videos to fundraising success. Specifically, we study the significance of visual themes in raising funds, and how they can assist or hinder entrepreneurs in raising funds. We demonstrate how certain themes can benefit some projects while harming others.