Equity Crowdfunding Success in Malaysia: The Role of Crowd Investors, Campaign Disclosure and Valuation Disclosure

This study examines the determinants of equity crowdfunding (ECF) campaign success in Malaysia through the lens of quality signaling theory and behavioral herding dynamics. Using a manually collected dataset of 335 completed campaigns launched on pitchIN, MyStartr, and AtaPlus between 2016 and 2025. The study investigates how firm-level and campaign-level signals influence fundraising outcomes in a regulated digital financing environment. Binary logistic regression is employed as the primary analytical method, with probit regression used for robustness testing. The findings show that the number of investors has a significant and positive relationship with campaign success, underscoring the importance of social proof and herding behavior in reducing information asymmetry. Valuation disclosure significantly increases the likelihood of success by enhancing transparency and investor confidence, while company age displays a negative effect, indicating investor preference for younger and growth-oriented ventures. In contrast, campaign duration and industry sector do not significant influence once credible signals are considered. The study contributes to the entrepreneurial finance literature by cooperatively modelling behavioral crowd signals and firm-level quality signals using real-market data from Malaysia, and offers practical insights for entrepreneurs, platform operators, and policymakers seeking to strengthen transparency, investor engagement, and digital financing effectiveness.