Brazilian Immigrant Entrepreneurs in Portugal and the Challenges of Crowdfunding

Introduction

Entrepreneurship is an important instrument for promoting economic growth, job creation, income generation and the improvement of individuals' skills and abilities, especially for immigrants who could face special economic and socio-cultural integration difficulties in the hosting country (García-Cabrera et al., 2020). For immigrants, entrepreneurship can be a way of empowerment and of breaking the risk of economic and social exclusion to which they are exposed, especially in time of pandemic or economic and social crises.

Nevertheless, when launching their social ventures, entrepreneurs face some challenges, especially the capacity to mobilise the financial resources necessary for the venture, mainly in the initial stages (Belleñamme et al., 2010). Immigrant entrepreneurs, who launch projects in other markets than their own country of origin, face increased challenges, which they need to overcome for the venture to succeed (Jiang et al., 2016).

The COVID-19 pandemic is leading to a severe deterioration of economic and social conditions, making the poverty and social exclusion risk increasingly higher, especially for more susceptible groups, such as immigrants. Further, the Post-COVID-19 period will face significant challenges related to the resources available to create new ventures, where immigrant entrepreneurs, will once again face difficulties in obtaining funding for their projects.

Over the last few years, new forms of financing have been developed. Collaborative funding, or crowdfunding (CF), is one of these new fundraising tools that are especially promising for small start-up ventures and has experienced strong growth as a source of financing for the entrepreneurial activity in the economic-financial crisis that arose in 2008 (Kuti & Madarász, 2014; Stemler, 2013).

Despite its potential as an alternative funding source, CF is still a not very explored area. Indeed, crowdfunding is so far scarcely known by the general population, and even by some of the publics who might be most interested in using this type of funding, such as entrepreneurs.

This research aims to understand the level of knowledge that Brazilian immigrant entrepreneurs in Portugal have about crowdfunding and their propensity to use this alternative funding source.

This study is justified by the academic relevance that crowdfunding and immigrant entrepreneurship have acquired in literature, as well as the practical importance that the exploitation of new forms of funding has for immigrant entrepreneurship. Moreover, in this turbulent and challenging environment, it is crucial to discover new paths to reduce the obstacles to immigrant entrepreneurship and find new funding sources for those who want to develop an entrepreneurial activity to improve their economic and social condition.

The chapter begins with a literature review on the concept of immigrant entrepreneurship and its implications, and then it advances to the presentation of the crowdfunding concept and the existing business models. Next, follows the description of the methodology used in the study, the results and conclusions