What about realized returns in reward-based crowdfunding?

Crowdfunding is an alternative form of financing, especially for entrepreneurs in the early-stage development phase. It is well-known that for investors, beyond altruistic motives, material returns play a crucial role, too. A previous study in this field analyzed returns offered by founders and demanded by investors, resp., by means of a data set from kickstarter.com, a leading platform for reward-based crowdfunding. The present paper additionally looks at the realized returns from an ex post view. It does not present new empirical findings, but identifies problems and limitations in this field, and presents some suggestions for future research.