Traditionally, investors adopt co-ethnicity investment as a strategy to overcome information asymmetry and opportunistic behavior. Our research investigates if co-ethnicity investment also applies to the crowdfunding setting. Based on 503 participants’ responses, we found that potential investors in crowdfunding do employ a co-ethnicity strategy when making funding decisions. In addition, we extend previous research by refining preferences into the likability of the person and the likability of the message. Our results show that some determinants of personal likability such as perceived attractiveness as well as message likability such as humor may be more salient for investors and founders of the same race than different races. Lastly, both the likability of the person and the message are positively related to the funding decision. However, the effect of the likability of the message is stronger than that of the likability of the person.
