Impacting Information Asymmetry within the Swedish Equity Crowdfunding Market : An aggregated approach on how equity crowdfunding platforms work to govern, control and reduce information asymmetry

Sammanfattning: The equity crowdfunding market has since the financial crisis in 2008 become an important source of alternative financing in Sweden. The equity crowdfunding platforms constitute the market and are responsible for governing the investment relationships. However, the market is not regulated, and in the spring of 2018 the Swedish government proposed regulatory changes for the platforms to impact the problem of information asymmetry. There are different approaches on how to impact the problem, and therefore the thesis sets out to understand how the equity crowdfunding platforms within the Swedish market work to impact information asymmetry.  Empirical data has been collected from five different Swedish equity crowdfunding platforms. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with individuals whose work is connected to governing and impacting information asymmetry. The analysis of the empirical findings identifies five main reasons for the arise of information asymmetry and the platforms work to control and reduce information asymmetry by mitigation strategies, investor communication and effective signaling. The findings indicate that there is a trade-off between controlling information asymmetry and making the financing method accessible within the market. This study contributes to the understanding of how equity crowdfunding platforms work to impact information asymmetry within the Swedish market.