This study examines the effect of equity crowdfunding on startup performance. To do so, it uses a novel dataset of equity crowdfunding startups from January 2016 to April 2019 and constructs a sample of matched non-crowdfunding startups. The data indicate that equity crowdfunding startups rather than non-crowdfunding startups are more likely to survive, and conditional on closure, their closing dates are later than those of non-crowdfunding startups. Equity crowdfunding startups also show higher growth in employment. Additional analyses indicate that expert equity investors are crucial for startup performance at least by facilitating access to external funding and debt crowdfunding does not help startups increase performance significantly.