Kickstarter Cracks The Billion Dollar Mark And Keeps On Rolling
Just how popular is Kickstarter’s crowdfunding site? Or perhaps a better question is how important is Kickstarter to those raising funds for grassroots projects? The answer can be found in this stat that the company announced today: Backers have pledged a billion dollars on the site, as of today.
We’ve covered our share of Kickstarter projects, which include a mix of sort of adorable and fun ideas, longshots, and serious projects that have become Real Things. For example, there was the Moment smartphone lens and smartphone-controlled electric paper airplane; an inexpensive 3D scanner and a holodeck gaming device; the OUYA game console, MiiPC family computer, and the Pebble smartwatch; and more.
Even with Kickstarter's tremendous success, it's also important to note that the company suffered a security breach not too long ago, as well.
Kickstarter put out some contextual statistics on a fun page to put that billion dollar amount in perspective. First, 5.7 million people have pledged money on the site from 224 countries and all seven continents (including Mr. Espen Artzen, who lives near the North Pole), and astonishingly, more than half of that amount has come through in the last 12 months.
Espen Artzen: Kickstarter backer, lives near North Pole
The U.S. leads the list of donor countries by a longshot with over $663 million pledged; number two is the UK with $54 million, and the last country in the top ten is Singapore, which is the source of $6.7 million in funds.
Although of course one assumes that family members are often behind donations, Kickstarter noted that, at least, there were very few who identified themselves as such--there were just 13 backers named “Dad”, 5 “Grandpa”, 17 “Grandma”, and 18 “Mom”.
Kickstarter has been up and running for just shy of five years, with no signs of slowing down.
We’ve covered our share of Kickstarter projects, which include a mix of sort of adorable and fun ideas, longshots, and serious projects that have become Real Things. For example, there was the Moment smartphone lens and smartphone-controlled electric paper airplane; an inexpensive 3D scanner and a holodeck gaming device; the OUYA game console, MiiPC family computer, and the Pebble smartwatch; and more.
Even with Kickstarter's tremendous success, it's also important to note that the company suffered a security breach not too long ago, as well.
Kickstarter put out some contextual statistics on a fun page to put that billion dollar amount in perspective. First, 5.7 million people have pledged money on the site from 224 countries and all seven continents (including Mr. Espen Artzen, who lives near the North Pole), and astonishingly, more than half of that amount has come through in the last 12 months.
Espen Artzen: Kickstarter backer, lives near North Pole
The U.S. leads the list of donor countries by a longshot with over $663 million pledged; number two is the UK with $54 million, and the last country in the top ten is Singapore, which is the source of $6.7 million in funds.
Although of course one assumes that family members are often behind donations, Kickstarter noted that, at least, there were very few who identified themselves as such--there were just 13 backers named “Dad”, 5 “Grandpa”, 17 “Grandma”, and 18 “Mom”.
Kickstarter has been up and running for just shy of five years, with no signs of slowing down.
