What is Kickstarter

Kickstarter was founded in New York, USA in 2009. It was originally a product crowdfunding platform based in the United States and later expanded to various countries. It raises funds for creative project initiators through website crowdfunding.

history

-Kickstarter was founded on April 28, 2009 by Perry Chen, Yancey Strickler, and Charles Adler. The New York Times called Kickstarter "the people's NEA", and Time called it "the best invention of 2010" and "the best website of 2011". Kickstarter's backers reportedly raised more than $10 million in funding, including from New York-based Union Square Ventures and angel investors such as Jack Dorsey, Zach Klein, and Caterina Fake. The company is headquartered in Manhattan's Lower East Side.

-Andy Baio served as the site's CTO until November 2010, when he joined Expert Labs. Lance Ivy has been the site's lead developer since its launch. On February 14, 2013, Kickstarter launched an iOS mobile app called Kickstarter for iPhone. The app's purpose is to help users create and back up projects, and it is the first official mobile app released by Kickstarter.

-In 2014, Kickstarter received B Corp certification.

-On September 21, 2015, Kickstarter announced through its official blog that it would transform from a traditional for-profit enterprise to a Public-Benefit Corporation (PBC).

-On August 30, 2016, Kickstarter announced that it would open its platform to makers in Hong Kong and Singapore.

Achievement

As of October 17, 2018, the number of supporters of the crowdfunding website reached 15,336,150, the total number of crowdfunding projects reached 421,307, 152,029 successful crowdfunding projects, the total crowdfunding amounted to US$3,944,134,227, and the crowdfunding success rate was 36.44%.

Crowdfunding Project Type

Crowdfunding projects are mainly divided into 9 categories: food and handicrafts, music, publishing, film, art, design and technology, comics and illustrations, games, etc.

Regions supported by crowdfunding

United States, United Kingdom, Mexico, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Netherlands, Denmark, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Austria, Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Singapore and Hong Kong.

cost

Of all the funds raised, Kickstarter will charge a 5% service fee, and another 3%-5% third-party payment fee will be borne by the project initiator.

Successful crowdfunding cases

In 2012, Amanda Palmer launched a crowdfunding project that raised more than $1 million, which is currently the number one fundraising case in the music category on the platform.

In 2012, LeVar Burton, host of Reading Rainbow, launched a project on Kickstarter, hoping to make it playable on iPad and Kindle Fire through mobile applications. The final total amount of financing was 5.4 times the target amount, reaching US$5,408,916;

In 2013, Rob Thomas, the creator of Veronica Mars, put the project on Kickstarter to raise funds for the film version. As of April 12, a total of $5,702,530 was raised.

In 2015, De La Soul, a legendary hip-hop trio, decided to release an album again after 11 years away from the music scene. Through a creative crowdfunding plan and generous rewards, they raised $600,000, solving the problems of album production, promotion and sales in one fell swoop;

In November 2015, American musician David Teie launched a project called "Cat Music" on Kickstarter, aiming to create music that cats can enjoy. The project received support from more than 10,000 users and raised more than $240,000. The project originally planned to raise $20,000.

Logo Change

Before December 2017:

after: