Kickstarter is a site many of us have heard of in recent months, as both interesting and not-so-interesting projects alike pop-up, with some hitting the spotlight in the news. The site is what's known as a crowd funding website. Those with a grand idea form a proposal for their project and post it to Kickstarter; it's typical to then offer various rewards in exchange for different levels of investment pledges, so, for example, pledge £5 and you may receive credit and a cool badge, pledge £1,000 and you may receive an early copy of the finished product, that the project aims to create.
In theory, the site is a great idea, allowing young entrepreneurs to expose ideas and receive funding from the general public, no strings attached other than pledge commitments, however, just how effective has it been in helping people to raise money? Is it a safe bet to pledge funds on a project? Well recently the site released a statistics page to answer just that question.
Since its launch in 2008, 61,304 projects have found their way to Kickstarter, with a total of £170 million in funds pledged, £142 million of which were towards successfully funded projects. The actual project funding success rate sits at 44.02 per cent, indicating that the public has a fairly good eye for spotting projects that won't quite take off the ground, with only 16 per cent of funding being pledged to projects that don't quite meet their quotas.
Projects in the Arts have raised the most money so far, with design, games and technology shortly following, with the former two seeing the highest number of $1mil+ projects.
We highly recommend our readers visit the site and have a browse of past projects and to take a look at the 4,012 projects currently active, who knows, perhaps there will be something that excites you enough to want to help fund it.
