Abstract:
Small and medir,rm enterprises (SMEs) are regarded as the backbone of economies.
whether it is just for a single state or country or if considered for the globe as a whole.
There are many challenges that SMEs face in the modern economy such as lack of
finance, deficiencies in marketing, low human resource capabilities and technological
challenges. Out of these the financial aspect such as insufficient access to financial
resources and investment capital can be a significant barrier to the growth of these
SMEs. There is a suitable new way funding for this problem that is emerging in the
modern world known as crowd-funding. This method mostly involves using the internet
to collect money in small and medium amounts from several individuals thereby
collecting the needed capital. Therefore, this study focuses on the factors affeciing
adoption of crowdfunding as a source of funding among SMEs ip Colombo region. [n
this study the researcher attempts to determine the current level of Intention to use
crowdfunding among owners/managers of SMEs and determine the relationship
between Intention to use crowdfunding and factors s"ufh as Crowdfunding awareness,
Perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness and Attitude. Questionnaire was the tool
selected to collect data for this study and 160 responses were collected and analyzed.
In this study, the statistical tools that used to analyze the levels of variables are mean
and standard deviation values, while relationships were measured by Pearson
coefficients for further analysis ANOVA was also used. Moreover, the result shows
low level of intention to use crowdfunding and strong significant positive relationship
between intention and the variables Crorvdfunding awareness, perceived ease of use,
perceived usefulness and attitudes to use crowdfunding. Further analysis showed that
there are no significant differences in Intention among the groups in age and education.
This study provides useful information to crowdfunding services on the best way to
promote their products as well as policy makers to improve the use of crowdfunding
service and thereby potentially reducing the finance problems among the SMEs
