Crowdfunding for Infrastructure Project Financing: Lesson Learned for Asian Countries

Infrastructure plays a pivotal role in national development. However, financing infrastructure projects becomes a major hurdle as it is often considered unbankable, high risk, and requires a long payback period. The use of crowdfunding as an alternative source for infrastructure project financing is flourishing, especially in European and American countries. In contrast, the utilization of crowdfunding for such purposes in Asian countries is very limited. Hence, this study reviews four crowdfunding platforms in Europe and America that have successfully raised capital for infrastructure projects which are Oneplanetcrowd, Convergence Finance, Citizenergy, and Infrashares. Learning from best practices of those platforms, policies, and regulations, the study proposes four crowdfunding business models to be implemented in Asian countries including (1) blended finance, (2) cross-border citizen funding, (3) commercial infrastructure financing, and (4) within country crowdfunding.