Crowdfunding uses a small amount of money from many people to fund a new venture. It is essentially a collective investment characterized by diversified investors, crowd-based decision-making, and consensus threshold. The sustainability of these markets heavily depends on the screening performance of the crowd. Although empirical studies suggest crowd-based funding decisions can be wise, little is known about the underlying rationale. This paper fills this void. We employ a computational experiment to investigate the impacts of investors’ attributes, i.e. ability and heterogeneity, and the threshold mechanisms on screening performance. We firstly identify the filtering effect of the consensus threshold. The high threshold screens out most of the unattractive projects and leads to less waste of capital, which makes All-Or-Nothing always outperform Keep-It-All. Further, we find a substitution effect of heterogeneity. When the group size is big enough, heterogeneous unsophisticated groups trump same-sized well-chosen ones. Lastly, the substitution effect of heterogeneity is moderated by the effectiveness of signals. In a crowdfunding environment of low predictability, investors’ heterogeneity contributes little to the collective accuracy, while investors’ expertise remains critical. In contrast to popular perceptions of crowdfunding markets as a new financing tool or marketing tool for entrepreneurs, our research indicates that crowdfunding is also an effective screener for collective investment.

众筹使用许多人的少量资金来资助一项新的事业。它本质上是一种集体投资，其特点是多元化的投资者，基于人群的决策和共识阈值。这些市场的可持续性在很大程度上取决于人群的筛选表现。尽管经验研究表明，基于人群的资金决策可能是明智的，但对其基本原理知之甚少。本文填补了这一空白。我们采用计算实验来研究投资者属性（即能力和异质性）以及筛选机制的阈值机制的影响。我们首先确定共识阈值的过滤效果。较高的门槛可以将大多数没有吸引力的项目排除在外，从而减少了资金浪费，这使得“要么一无所有”总是优于“一无所有”。此外，我们发现了异质性的替代效应。当组的大小足够大时，异构的，复杂的组将胜过相同大小的精心选择的组。最后，异质性的替代效应被信号的有效性所缓和。在可预测性较低的众筹环境中，投资者的异质性对总体准确性的影响很小，而投资者的专业知识仍然至关重要。与众筹市场将其视为企业家的新融资工具或营销工具的流行看法相反，我们的研究表明，众筹也是集体投资的有效筛选器。异类的复杂群体胜过同等大小的精心选择的群体。最后，异质性的替代效应被信号的有效性所缓和。在可预测性较低的众筹环境中，投资者的异质性对总体准确性的贡献很小，而投资者的专业知识仍然至关重要。与众筹市场将其视为企业家的新融资工具或营销工具的流行看法相反，我们的研究表明，众筹也是集体投资的有效筛选器。异类的复杂群体胜过同等大小的精心选择的群体。最后，异质性的替代效应被信号的有效性所缓和。在可预测性较低的众筹环境中，投资者的异质性对总体准确性的影响很小，而投资者的专业知识仍然至关重要。与众筹市场将其视为企业家的新融资工具或营销工具的流行看法相反，我们的研究表明，众筹也是集体投资的有效筛选器。