Crowdfunding the method of raising capital for any reason, mostly for the creation of a unique product, via friends, family, individual investors, and the internet community at large. Crowdfunding is usually achieved by crowdfunding platforms like Kickstart, IndieGoGo, and GoFundMe. These platforms allow the creators of the product to bring attention to the project, thereby attracting more revenue for the same. Often a project will establish a social media presence as well, on YouTube or Facebook, and keep bringing videos of their progress to the public, advertising for more investors.
The primary way in which Crowdfunding differs from traditional investment rounds is the difference in visibility that it brings with it. With investment rounds, founders would find themselves taking their business plan to multiple investors, taking up a lot of their time. However, with crowdfunding, they can bring their idea to the entire internet, wherein they can find people willing to back their projects.
There are three main kinds of crowdfunding, namely, reward type, donation type, and equity type.
The donation-based type is where the creators only ask for funds from the people on the platform, without offering anything in return. Most crowdfunding projects of this type of crowdfunding to raise money for charitable or medical purposes. It is a relatively common type of crowdfunding, with GoFundMe relying on the same.
The reward-based type is where the creator offers tiered rewards to people who fund their projects. Even though there is actually a reward being offered to the funders, it is considered to be a subset of donation based crowdfunding, as there is little to no financial gain. This form of crowdfunding is the most famous kind, with Kickstarter, IndieGoGo, and Patreon relying on the same.
The last and the least famous, kind of crowdfunding is the equity based crowdfunding. On platform working on this kind of crowdfunding, creators of projects offer equity or shares in their company in exchange for the investor’s funds. This is very similar to traditional investment methods, with the only difference being that investors visit the platform looking for projects and companies to fund, instead of the other way around.
Here we will take a look at crowdfunding in detail and understand the industry completely. We will look at popular platforms and their financial statistics. Then we will look at some incredibly weird crowdfunded projects!
Quick facts
If you have a potentially fantastic idea that you would like to crowdfund and are only looking at this article to understand if the process of crowdfunding is appropriate for you, then look no further than this section. Let’s take a swift look at some basic facts about crowdfunding in general.
- The average successful crowdfunding campaign is worth around $7,000.
- The average crowdfunding campaign donation is $88.
- 42% of funds are raised in the first and last three days of a crowdfunding campaign.
- 78% of crowdfunding campaigns exceed their goal.
- There have been 10.94 million total campaigns across all the crowdfunding platforms.
- Around 56,000 projects on Kickstarter got 0% funding.
The Crowdfunding Industry
Now that we have learned about the various platforms on which crowdfunding occurs let’s take a look into the overall industry itself. Understanding the crowdfunding industry, in general, will involve looking at both, the financial facts, and the statistics regarding the campaigns themselves. Let’s begin with what the future of crowdfunding can look like:
1. The crowdfunding industry is projected to grow to nearly $30 billion by 2025: The crowdfunding industry is growing rapidly, with the amount of money being earned by the top platforms climbing quickly to nearly $8 billion. The industry will continue to grow at a CAGR of almost 16% to steeply climb to a $30 billion industry.
(Source: Crowd Expert)
2. The crowdfunding industry was worth nearly $8.537 billion in 2019: As the funds being raised for crowdfunding projects grow larger and larger, the amount of money that is made by crowdfunding platforms and the general industry rises as well. Most platforms take a small cut form both, the total funds raised by the project, and from the transactions between the donors and the creators. The amount of money that the platforms have earned is more than eight and a half-billion dollars. The amount increases with around 16% CAGR, and the industry is expected to have a robust future.
(Source: Valuates)
3. Since the creation of crowdfunding, there have been $34 billion total funds raised on various platforms and independently: The crowdfunding industry has because a major platform for startups to find their footing. Owning to the large internet community, a large number of projects can raise huge amounts of money. According to some industry experts and the public records of crowdfunding companies, crowdfunding has raised nearly $34 billion since 2012, with the top four platforms raising nearly 78% of all the raised funds. The amount raised is expected to rise sharply, with the growing popularity of crowdfunding and the internet. Industry forecasts state that the amount raised might rise to nearly $50 billion in the coming five years.
(Source: Startup)
4. The biggest classification of businesses being crowdfunded is Business and Entrepreneurship, holding 41.4% of the market: Crowdfunding affects all kinds of business and projects, from the technological innovations to an artist’s work. According to a study by massolution, the biggest market for crowdfunding to be raised in the business and entrepreneur sector. This sector covers all new technological innovations and any new kind of business, which can be about anything, from a new service, or selling art. Hence any all projects under the “Profits” section of projects count under this sector. Therefore, it is no surprise that this sector counts for as much as 41.1% of all the funds raised on crowdfunding platforms.
(Source: Massolution)
5. There has been nearly $25 billion spent on peer to peer lending platforms: Peer to peer lending refers to the practice of lending or borrowing money between two individuals without any financial institutions ratifying the same. This refers to almost all of the most popular crowdfunding platform. These platforms take a small cut of the transactions occurring on the platform, and the money is transferred directly between the users. The creator of the project returns the money in the form of rewards and perks. Hence they count as peer to peer lending, with the money flowing in this way has reached $25 billion. The other money has been raised through financial institutions and donation based crowdfunding.
(Source: Fundly)
6. Only around half of all crowdfunded projects are get completely funded: As we have seen, millions of campaigns have been successfully funded through crowdfunding. Now considering the fact that this only states the number of successful campaigns, the number of unsuccessful campaigns may surprise anyone. The success rate for crowdfunding projects on the top platforms of the world, it has been shown that as many as half of all crowdfunding projects fail to reach their goal. Which means any given project only has a 50 – 50 chance of success. While this may seem like a terrifying prospect for anybody looking to start a crowdfunding project, keep in mind that a lot of the failed products manage to reach a significant part of their goal.
(Source: Massolution)
Most Successful Crowdfunded Companies
Given the success of crowdfunding platforms and the adoption of crowdfunding in startup culture, it is not surprising that a large number of companies started their life as a crowdfunded project. Here we will look at some popular companies that got their start as a publicly crowdfunded project. Keep in mind, we will only mention the projects that started off as a crowdfunded project, and not an already existing product/company raising extra money via crowdfunding. This list will also explore top-rated companies that started as crowdfunded projects but have grown immensely since then.
7. The highest amount of funds raised was for the game Star Citizen: Star Citizen is an upcoming space-based Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) being developed by Roberts Space Industry. The company was founded by two video game developing veterans who had previously worked on the popular space game Wing Commander 2. The decision to make an MMORPG inspired by the wing commander universe. This led to the creation of Star Citizen. The game claimed to be a seamless blend between an FPS shooter and an Eve Online like space sim. The trailer video was released on Kickstarter and their own website. This then led to the most successful crowdfunded endeavor of all time, with their independent and kickstarted funds to date being around $215 million. They also have taken an investment from a private individual. The game is set to release in late 2020.
(Source: Star Citizen, EuroGamer)
8. The most successful Kickstarted project to date was the smartwatch Pebble: Smartwatches have started to become very ubiquitous in modern society. The market has been taken over by companies like Apple and Samsung. However, the first mass-produced smartwatch was actually created by the company Pebble. The Pebble 1 and 2 were a smartwatch whose display looked like paper, much like the Kindle. The Pebble 1 was revealed on Kickstarter, and being the first proper smartwatch, the Pebble gathered a lot of attention online. The Kickstarter raised almost 30.6 million dollars, and the watch got produced. The watch was soon followed by another being designed, and also got crowdfunded. However, the small company couldn’t match the features being offered by Apple and Samsung and wasn’t able to keep its market share intact. The company was acquired by Fitbit in 2019 and stopped honoring old warrantees.
(Source: Kickstarter)
9. One of the most popular projects was for the creation of a new type of honeycomb Flow Hive: Traditional beekeeping methods involve steps that can severely hurt or even kill a lot of bees. This meant that extracting any honey from these hives could potentially damage the very bees that live in the hives could die. This was a point of contention for the creators of the Flow hive. Therefore, they decided to create a hive that could harvest honey safely, without damaging any bees. These hives were designed and then put on IndieGoGo. Beekeepers around the world loved the idea and dubbed the design as being the next default hive. The project raised nearly 14.95 million dollars, and successfully launched the Flow Hive 1 and then the follow-up Flow hive 2.
(Source: Flow, IndieGoGo)
10. Seeking party animals, Coolest Cooler was put on Kickstarter and managed to raise millions: Some companies don’t exist to fill a need, but just exists to provide a crazy product for crazy needs. This is exactly the principle that the creators of the Coolest Cooler. This is a drinks cooler that can keep a lot of ice and drinks cool. It also features an ice blender to create margaritas and sangrias. The cooler even has a completely waterproof Bluetooth speaker and also features a waterproof USB charger outlet. Some more features that they packed into the cooler are LED lights, rolling wheels, a bottle opener, and even storage for Plates and Knives. The project was widely loved by people who love to party and managed to raise nearly 13.38 million dollars. The company now offers a large range of products related to coolers and their accessories.
(Source: Coolest)
11. Annoyed with all the issues related to travel, creators of BauBax made the travel jacket: Two graduates who were dating each other found the annoyances of long-distance travel to meet each other decided to create a jacket that would aid all small niggles of travel. This resulted in them coming up with the BauBax jacket series, which were named after themselves. They realized the potential of what they had created and released it on Kickstarter, where the jacket ended up raising almost 9.12 million dollars. Currently, the company makes a large number of travel products, including multiple styles of jackets, sleeping masks, neck pillows, and even footrests.
(Source: BauBax, Kickstarter)
12. The highest amount of money raised by any board game was by Exploding kittens: Do you like kittens? Do you like the thought of impending death via explosions? Do you like goats and lasers? Then you would definitely love the card game Exploding Kitten. This game features a deck of cards, and the objective of the game is to avoid being blown up by the cats playing with explosive devices. The game was created by the creators when they were playing a game that involved the person who draws a joker from the pile losing the game. This game was then refined, and with the help of illustrator, the game of Exploding Kittens was created. A Kickstarter campaign was launched for the same, which got incredible popularity over Reddit. The campaign ended with nearly 8.8 million dollars being raised for the same. Exploding Kitten now has 2 expansion packs, and the company offers two more card games as well.
(Source: Exploding Kittens)
13. One of the first companies to raise money via crowdfunding was Dwarven Forge: When crowdfunding was still in its early stages, campaigns raising over one million dollars were rare. This was when the independent company Dwarven Forge released its kickstart campaign. This company was created by an artist who specialized in creating miniatures. These miniatures were hand-painted and part of a modular set, which allowed them to be used for the creation of a variety of medieval fantasy structures. The company had 3 separate campaigns to fund the creation of different styles of pieces. In total, Dwarven Forge raised nearly 8.4 million dollars, making it a multi-million dollar enterprise with customers all around the globe.
(Source: Dwarven Forge, Kickstarter)
14. Bragi, a company that revolutionized the wearable technology, was born on IndieGoGo: Wireless headphones and earphones have become the norm in the wearable department. More companies are offering fully wireless earphones and headphones than companies offering wired earphones. One of the companies that have revolutionized this market has been Bragi, who created an operating system for exclusive use on wireless earphones and headphones. This allows users to install apps directly onto the headphones and also control them using head gestures. The initial campaign on IndieGoGo was for the Bragi Earphones, which were proprietary earphones that were the first device to run the Bragi OS. The campaign managed to raise over 3.4 million dollars, allowing Bragi to become a software-focused company, which develops smart earphones and headphones in collaboration with other companies.
(Source: Bragi)
15. The most popular company that was kickstarted was the Virtual Reality company Oculus: The name Oculus has become synonymous with Virtual Reality technology. This is the most well-known crowdfunded project of all time, even though it raised only 2.4 million dollars. The Oculus Rift was posted on Kickstarter and exploded into popularity online. This came at a time when the virtual reality technology was just in its infancy. Oculus Rift was properly funded and was sent to the people who pre-ordered them. It got amazing reviews by all the early adopters, and the valuation of the company Oculus grew nearly overnight. The company was eventually purchased by Facebook for almost two billion dollars and now offers three different VR headsets and a lot of other accessories.
(Source: Kickstarter, Oculus)
16. The only other brand to be sold out of every Apple Store also started as a crowdfunded venture: If you own any Apple product, the chances are high that you are acquainted with Elevation Labs. This company only creates docks and chargers for Apple products. They started off by creating a dock for the Apple iPhone 4 and was placed on Kickstarter. The dock raised nearly 1.6 million dollars. The product was shipped out, and Apple quickly realized that a lot of their customers were buying this product. Soon Elevation Labs also started to sell docks and wireless chargers for nearly all Apple mobile products. Soon Apple announced an official partnership and started selling Elevation Labs products in all of their store, the first, and the only brand to ever be given this distinction.
(Source: Elevation Labs)
Unusual Crowd Funded Projects
As we have seen in this article, crowdfunding has some fantastic potential for funding innovative technological marvels. It has given excellent opportunities for millions of people who otherwise wouldn’t have been able to secure funding for their ideas. Crowdfunding has allowed the financing of cutting edge technology and even to support charitable or artistic endeavors. It has led to the rise of some companies worth millions today. However, it has also been used to finance some projects and products that some might deem unusual or even bizarre. Let’s take a look at some of the most exciting and unique projects that have been successfully funded on various crowdfunding platforms.
17. The $55,492 Potato Salad whose maker didn’t even know what to make: In quite possibly the weirdest display of internet solidarity and support, everyone on the internet decided to fund this project. In 2014, the soon to be internet legend, Zack Brown got hungry and decided to make himself a potato salad. However, upon finding himself lacking the necessary funds to do the same, he decided to Kickstart his mixture. He requested the internet to give him $10 for a potato salad, about which Zack said, “I don’t even know what kind to make.” The salad and its Kickstarter went famous over the internet and the news. Soon donations started to pour in for the potato salad, and a bite of the same, and they Kickstarter managed to earn $55,492 in the end! This goal was stretched multiple times to feature a bigger and bigger event. In the end, Zack threw a giant Potato Salad party, attended by hundreds of people. They all made and partook in Potato Salad of every kind, also feeding the homeless around the city. The rest of the money, and the food from the event, was donated to different charities.
(Source: Kickstarter)
18. Saving Hermien the Dutch cow from slaughter by crowdfunding: A close contender for the weirdest reason for the internet to band together was the case of the escaped cow in the Netherlands. Hermien, the Dutch cow, was being loaded onto a truck to be taken to the slaughter-house. Hermien managed to fool her captors and escape, with the owners not able to find her for a week. Subsequently, when the news broke, someone on the internet decided to create a Kickstarter to save Hermien and keep her alive. The Kickstarter got incredibly famous, with Pieter van Vollenhoven, the former Queen Beatrice’ son – in – law, urging people to save Hermien. The cow raised nearly $60,000. Upon her eventual capture, she was handed to a farm named ‘De Leemweg,’ in the Zandhuizen region of Netherlands. This is a retirement home for cows, where unwanted cows can live out the rest of their lives in peace. The farm is totally dependent on donations and hence was very grateful for the $60,000 that was donated for the care of Hermien.
(Source: Daily Mail)
19. The diabolical birthday card getting funded on the internet: Have you ever heard a really poorly tuned musical card? It is honestly one of the most annoying things in the world. This thought also occurred to the creators of one of the most diabolical pieces of technology ever created. When brothers Travis and Nick Peterson were discussing exactly how annoying a musical birthday card they got was, they hit upon the idea of the perfect birthday card. They invented a card whose speaker was nearly indestructible, and also waterproof. Once the card is triggered, the speaker continually plays the birthday song for three hours! This speaker does not switch off until the battery runs out, or the speaker is destroyed. The speaker is capable of playing after being dipped in water, and even after being crushed with a variety of furniture. They also offer Christmas cards and will even put the song of your choice on a custom card. They put their project on Kickstarter and raised $92,073!
(Source: Kickstarter)
20. A giant replica of Lionel Richie’s head worth £8,000 debuted at a giant party: Lionel Richie is a famous American songwriter who is perhaps the most well-known for his song Hello, from which a line “Hello, is it me you’re looking for?” has been turned into a well-shared meme. He is hugely revered and respected for his music and has many die-hard fans. One of these fans, Hungry Castle, a Spanish artist, decided to create a giant sculpture of his head. He created a Kickstarter and almost overnight more than tripled his goal. His initial goal of creating a clay model seemed too small after that point, so he created a giant nylon head that was kept inflated with giant turbines and was weighed down by sandbags. It was debuted at the Bestival 2013, where it was very beloved. People could go inside the nylon head, alone, find a ringing phone, which they could pick up and listening to Lionel Richie’s line “Hello, is it me looking for?”. The head was then rented out to couples for $1000 per night, for spending a night in the head.
(Source: Kickstarter)
21. Break the record for the largest jockstrap using crowdfunding: Some projects are just too weird to even try and explain. The other projects on this list hole at least some appeal for the backers involved, be it for the internet memes and charity, as in the potato salad, or for helping to baffle people, like the skywriting project. There are projects that give people a cool product, like the salt shooting shotgun, or the chance to put a fictional vehicle in space. However, there is absolutely no way to explain this particular project in any conceivable way. Artist Michael Barret decided, seemingly out of nowhere, to break the record for the largest jockstrap in the world. He needed $750 for the same and asked the people of the internet to help him out. The internet community came together and funded the project for a grand total of $854, allowing the artist to create the largest jockstrap of all time. The answer to the question of why he wanted to do it is still up for grabs.
(Source: Kickstarter)
22. Write dumb things in the sky for $6800: Skywriting is the practice of using airplanes to create smoke/fog symbols and writing in the sky, invented by British navy pilots. This is often used for benign purposes like for airshows and for festivals. However, one person, Kurt Braunohler, saw the opportunity to write some stupid things in the sky. He created a Kickstarter page and requested people to give him money to write things like “How do I land?”, “Clouds 4 EVA”, “OMG I’m flying!”, “Tweet me, bro!” “God’s Fartin’!” in the sky above Los Angeles. People loved this idea so much that they decided to throw nearly $6800 at him, which enabled him to rent an airplane and fulfill his dream of utterly baffling the residents of Los Angeles.
(Source: Kickstarter)
23. Putting an actual TARDIS, with a camera and a hard drive and other sensors, in space: The Time And Relative Dimensions in Space (TARDIS) is the famous spacecraft from the British TV show Doctor Who. The TARDIS allows The Doctor to travel across space and time, and even across dimensions! However, unfortunately, the TARDIS is just a fictional craft, and so its fans cannot see it fly gracefully. Until, a group of fans created a Kickstarter page to raise the capital to send an actual TARDIS replica (built on a 1:100 scale) to space on the back of a SpaceX rocket, to celebrate the 50th-anniversary special. Unfortunately, the project, despite raising almost $89,000, was unsuccessful, and the TARDIS never flew.
(Source: Kickstarter)
24. Flinging POOP at each other for fun with crowdfunding: POOP jokes are always funny. Yes, they are, don’t try to deny it. The creator of POOP, the game also thinks so. POOP the game is a parody of the UNO game, having the same goal. A player must discard all their cards or “poop” into the table card, or the “toilet.” There are skip cards and reverse cards and even wild cards. The wild cards require the player to perform a particular action, like miming pooping and acting like a particular player farted. The game is full of such juvenile humor, but it got funded very well when the game creator Blaise Sewell put it on IndieGoGo, and the game raised nearly $34,000. This allowed Blaise to mass-produce the game and is now available from major toy retailers.
(Source: Board Game Geek)
25. Creating a crystal tribute to the best kind of meat of all, bacon: Bacon is inarguably the best tasting kind of meat on the market. The bacon fandom is vast and far-reaching, including one particular jeweler. This jeweler, Greg Kiesow, created a Kickstarter project to create crystal replicas of bacon. This includes earrings, lockets, and even bracelets, all made out of crystal. This project raised $2,786, all by people who love eating bacon! Each piece looks like strips of cooked bacon, complete with streaks of colored crystal to simulate strips of fat and muscle.
(Source: Kickstarter)
26. Eating a chicken burrito while skydiving: Burritos are amazing. Chicken Burritos are even more amazing. Chipotle makes a great chicken burrito. These are just some common facts. However, Noboru Nitoy wanted to prove this fact to the rest of the internet by eating and delivering a review of a chicken burrito. In classic internet fashion, people jumped on board the idea, and they funded the idea very quickly. The goal was met, and the video was created. However, the internet wanted more, and so a stretch goal of $1000 was made, which, if met, Noboru would review the chicken burrito while diving from an airplane! Even this video was created, and still exists online, where Noboru jumps out of a plane with a chicken burrito in hand and eats it while falling from thousands of feet in the sky. He then rated the burrito after landing safely. He created another stretch goal of $6,000 to eat the burrito while in a Zero-G plane! Unfortunately, this idea wasn’t funded, and the sky diving burrito man faded into internet anonymity.
(Source: Kickstarter)
27. Bug A – Salt created a shotgun that could shoot shells filled with table salt, which could any and all bugs: Bugs are the scourge of the existence of many people. They are present everywhere and every kind. Sometimes killing a bug with bug spray just doesn’t feel satisfying. Another, more satisfying, way of killing bugs is by smacking them with a bug swatter. However, forget all about that, because the most satisfying way of killing a bug has been invented. Please welcome the Bug A – Salt shotgun, a gun that can shoot ordinary table salt in a shotgun shell-like spread. The salt gets blasted out at a high enough velocity to kill almost any common bug but be essentially harmless to humans. This shotgun was first created as a project on IndieGoGo and became nearly instantly internet famous, getting overfunded within days. It is now a company that sells a large range of assault weapons and shotguns that shoot salt to kill any bugs.
(Source: IndieGoGo, Bug-A-Salt)
28. The eye-mask that lets its user live out the movie Inception: The movie Inception revolves around the concept of lucid dreaming, which allows dreamers to control their dreams. Lucid dreaming is classically achieved by people who train themselves to continuously perform reality checks, which enable them to realize the fact they are dreaming. After they realize that they are dreaming, the dreamers can control the dream. The Remeé eye mask enables them to easily get around the process of performing reality checks, by flashing a series of red lights at times of REM sleep as REM sleep is when a person dreams the most complex dreams. The mask was posted on Kickstarter and earned more than half a billion dollars. Remeé is now a successful company that sells a range of well-designed eye masks to help users sleep and dream.
(Source: Kickstarter, Remeé)
29. The pillow that makes you look like an ostrich who has buried their head into the sand: Ostriches are very known for burying their head in the sand, though it has been consistently proven to be false. The identity of ostriches has been closely tied with this misinformation. The fact being false didn’t stop the creators of the ostrich pillow from adopting the adage into their innovation, the Ostrich Pillow. The pillow is designed to fit over the wearer’s head completely, leaving the mouth and nose open for breathing. The pillow even has two smaller openings for the wearer’s hands. It can be used to nap anywhere with ease, on tables, in public transports, or even in an office. The pillow’s campaign on IndieGoGo was quickly funded by its supporters and is now a successful company selling three major products, all related to sleep aid.
(Source: Ostrich Pillow)
30. Have your hands smell like bacon after washing them with the Bacon Scented Soap: Would you like your hands to smell like freshly cooked bacon? Well, you’re in luck! The meat soap promises to do just that, make your hands smell like fresh bacon after you wash using the soap. The soap even looks like cooked bacon! There is nothing to not like about this product. Its Kickstarter page raised its $1,500 goal within just 12 days and currently stands at $1,905. The creator of this soap also promises to bring along the scent of other famous meats as well, including steak, briskets, and smokey sausages.
(Source: Kickstarter)
Popular platforms
The success of any crowdfunding project depends very heavily upon the number of eyeballs that it draws. This is because the higher the number of people that view a project, the higher the chance a creator has of it getting fully funded. Hence, most plans are drawn to the most popular crowdfunding websites that allow millions of people to be aware of any project. So, let’s take a look at some of the most popular crowdfunding platforms, and see some statistics and facts related to them. We will also take a look at the exact way that they earn money or the perks that some platforms have over another.
1. GoFundMe: GoFundMe is by far the largest crowdfunding platform on the internet. It is mainly used for non-profit projects like charities, medical care, education, or even for personal trips and the purchase of a house or a car. People can upload their projects on the platform, along with anything they deem important, including videos, images, documents, audio clips, etc. GoFundMe has raised more than $5 billion for the projects on its platform, with nearly 50 million supporters using the platform. The platform doesn’t take any money from the total funds raised for any project, making it the ideal place for people to raise money for their personal reasons. The platform earns money via charging a 2.9% fee on all the donations that are made on the platform.
2. Kickstarter: Kickstarter is one of the most popular crowdfunding platforms. It allows people to create projects depicting their products or services for which they need to raise funds. These projects need to be accompanied by a video explaining their products and also create a set of documents explaining the same. These are just guidelines the Kickstarter provides to create a project, and often successful campaigns have all of these factors. The platform has raised over $3 billion for various projects, with nearly 15 million supporters visiting the platform. Kickstarter also lets creators offer the people who support their projects some sort of a small token, like an early version of the product or something smaller, like a t-shirt. The platform collects 5% of the entire fund collected for every successful project, as well as charging a 3% fee for all transactions on their platform.
3. IndieGoGo: IndieGoGo is a crowdfunding platform that focuses mainly on technology and hardware product launches. The platform is unique in the way that unlike other platforms, it offers creators a way to withdraw donated funds even if their projects weren’t funded fully. This lets individuals who aren’t completely confident about their idea’s public appeal bring the project to the platform and ensure that they at least get the support of some people, and not just if they fill their goals. IndieGoGo has as of yet managed to raise $1.5 billion over the years, with more than 10 million supporters. IndieGoGo takes a 5% cut of the total funds raised, or 9% cut in the case of withdrawing funding without the target goal being reached.
4. Patreon: Patreon is different from most other crowdfunding platforms, as it doesn’t operate on a lumpsum donation model. It works on a subscription model, which allows the so-called “Patrons” to pay a monthly subscription fee to content creators. These content creators are usually artists or channels on popular public platforms like YouTube or Spotify. These creators often give their Patrons special services or content. For example, gaming YouTubers may allow their Patrons to join lobbies to play with the content creators, or a musician could ask their patrons to weigh in on their next songs. As of 2019, creators have earned over $1 billion on the platform, with over 4 million Patrons who support one or more content creators over a period of many months.
Sources:
- Crowd Expert
- Valuates
- Startup
- Massolution
- Fundly
- Massolution
- Star Citizen, EuroGamer
- Kickstarter
- Flow, IndieGoGo
- Coolest
- BauBax, Kickstarter
- Exploding Kittens
- Dwarven Forge, Kickstarter
- Bragi
- Kickstarter, Oculus
- Elevation Labs
- Kickstarter
- Daily Mail
- Kickstarter
- Kickstarter
- Kickstarter
- Kickstarter
- Kickstarter
- Board Game Geek
- Kickstarter
- Kickstarter
- IndieGoGo, Bug-A-Salt
- Kickstarter, Remeé
- Ostrich Pillow
- Kickstarter