Copyright © 2026 Authors retain the copyright of this article. This article is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

@article{188819,
        author = {Ms. Soumya Stephen A. and Dr. Sanesh C.},
        title = {Crowdfunding for Start-ups & Entrepreneurship: A Bibliometric Review},
        journal = {International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology},
        year = {2025},
        volume = {12},
        number = {7},
        pages = {3696-3704},
        issn = {2349-6002},
        url = {https://ijirt.org/article?manuscript=188819},
        abstract = {Crowdfunding has emerged as a transformative financing mechanism for start-ups and entrepreneurial ventures, offering an alternative source of capital that bypasses traditional financial intermediaries. This bibliometric review examines the intellectual structure, thematic evolution, and research trends in the field of crowdfunding as it relates specifically to start-ups and entrepreneurship. Using data extracted from the Web of Science Core Collection, an initial broad search of the keyword “crowd funding” identified 2,521 publications, followed by a refined search using “crowdfunding” combined with “start-ups” or “entrepreneurship,” which yielded 132 relevant documents published between 1997 and 2025 in English. Bibliometric techniques including performance analysis and science mapping were applied using VOSviewer and Bibliometrix to uncover influential authors, journals, countries, and highly cited works, as well as to visualize co-authorship, co-citation, and keyword co-occurrence networks. The findings reveal a significant rise in scholarly interest after 2013, coinciding with the global expansion of digital funding platforms. Key thematic clusters include success factors in crowdfunding campaigns, information asymmetry and signaling, entrepreneurial finance models, and emerging trends such as sustainability-driven crowdfunding and decentralized finance (DeFi). The review also highlights growing attention toward investor behavior, legitimacy-building strategies, and the role of digital platforms in reducing financing barriers for new ventures. Despite a rich and expanding literature base, gaps remain regarding long-term performance outcomes, cross-country regulatory impacts, and the integration of blockchain-based models in entrepreneurial ecosystems. This study contributes a comprehensive synthesis of existing knowledge and provides direction for future research on how crowdfunding continues to reshape entrepreneurial finance},
        keywords = {Crowdfunding, Startup financing, Entrepreneurship, Equity crowdfunding, Reward-based crowdfunding, Fintech, Funding platforms},
        month = {December},
        }