Crowdfunding site Kickstarter surpasses US$1bn in pledges

4 Mar 2014

Kickstarter, the crowdfunding platform that has been key to the realisation of projects like the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, the Pebble smartwatch and the Veronica Mars movie, has surpassed US$1bn in pledges.

The five-year-old site, which allows entrepreneurs to call on public financial support for their projects, said more than half of the US$1bn had been pledged in the last 12 months.

In the past five years, Kickstarter has helped bankroll more than 57,000 creative projects.

“The 5,708,578 people who have backed a Kickstarter project come from 224 countries and territories, and all seven continents,” Kickstarter said in a blog commemorating the milestone.

The blog features an interactive map showing the sources of investment, with the US topping the table with US$663.3m pledged, followed by the UK with US$54m pledged.

Interestingly, despite Ireland’s economic crisis, some 13,356 Irish-based investors had the wherewithal to pledge US$2.38m.

kickstarter

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com