Team experience and ICO success: an empirical study of entrepreneurs in blockchain projects
Team experience and ICO success: an empirical study of entrepreneurs in blockchain projects
Initial coin offering (ICO), based on the blockchain technology, has emerged as a new fundraising mechanism in entrepreneurial finance for ventures to raise capital via crowdfunding. Building upon the limited yet growing body of literature on the interaction of entrepreneurship, crowdfunding, and organizational learning, this article aims to investigate the relationship between entrepreneur teams’ functional-based experience and crowdfunding success with a focus on the ICOs of blockchain projects. We also examine the moderating roles of the characteristics of blockchain projects on the relationship. The study collects empirical data on 428 blockchain projects which had completed their ICOs. Logistic regression models are developed to test hypotheses. The results show that entrepreneurial teams’ technically related ICO experience has a positive impact on their ICO success while commercially related ICO experience has a negative impact. Further examination shows that the sector factor significantly moderates both impacts. The moderating effect of soft caps is found insignificant. These findings add to the existing literature by highlighting the impact of entrepreneurs’ experience on the success of their ICO projects and have implications for practice on managing entrepreneurial team to improve crowdfunding performance
Blockchain projects, crowdfunding performance, entrepreneurial team experience, initial coin offering, organizational learning
1334-1347
Han, Chunjia
241d5aec-42dc-412e-bbc7-828b6c0638d3
Yang, Mu
5b63ff7c-7560-423e-ac2c-e8e19396da7c
Saridakis, George
f215666f-8cd1-402c-8c7a-f9b5fd13767b
Sassone, Vladi
df7d3c83-2aa0-4571-be94-9473b07b03e7
31 March 2025
Han, Chunjia
241d5aec-42dc-412e-bbc7-828b6c0638d3
Yang, Mu
5b63ff7c-7560-423e-ac2c-e8e19396da7c
Saridakis, George
f215666f-8cd1-402c-8c7a-f9b5fd13767b
Sassone, Vladi
df7d3c83-2aa0-4571-be94-9473b07b03e7
Han, Chunjia, Yang, Mu, Saridakis, George and Sassone, Vladi
(2025)
Team experience and ICO success: an empirical study of entrepreneurs in blockchain projects.
IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, 72, .
(doi:10.1109/TEM.2025.3555541).
Abstract
Initial coin offering (ICO), based on the blockchain technology, has emerged as a new fundraising mechanism in entrepreneurial finance for ventures to raise capital via crowdfunding. Building upon the limited yet growing body of literature on the interaction of entrepreneurship, crowdfunding, and organizational learning, this article aims to investigate the relationship between entrepreneur teams’ functional-based experience and crowdfunding success with a focus on the ICOs of blockchain projects. We also examine the moderating roles of the characteristics of blockchain projects on the relationship. The study collects empirical data on 428 blockchain projects which had completed their ICOs. Logistic regression models are developed to test hypotheses. The results show that entrepreneurial teams’ technically related ICO experience has a positive impact on their ICO success while commercially related ICO experience has a negative impact. Further examination shows that the sector factor significantly moderates both impacts. The moderating effect of soft caps is found insignificant. These findings add to the existing literature by highlighting the impact of entrepreneurs’ experience on the success of their ICO projects and have implications for practice on managing entrepreneurial team to improve crowdfunding performance
Text
TEM_final version_25March
- Accepted Manuscript
More information
Accepted/In Press date: 21 March 2025
Published date: 31 March 2025
Keywords:
Blockchain projects, crowdfunding performance, entrepreneurial team experience, initial coin offering, organizational learning
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 504654
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/504654
ISSN: 0018-9391
PURE UUID: 311de419-7994-48f0-874c-bdcd10c91660
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Date deposited: 16 Sep 2025 17:14
Last modified: 18 Sep 2025 01:40
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Contributors
Author:
Chunjia Han
Author:
Mu Yang
Author:
George Saridakis
Author:
Vladi Sassone
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