By Taylor Parsons
Popular crowdfunding website, Kickstarter, surpassed $1 billion in pledges as of Monday morning.
The impressive numbers come from over 5.7 million donators, with over half of the donations coming in the last 12 months alone.
The website has come a long way from its debut in 2009 – it only received $3900 in donations in its first month.
“This milestone is an achievement of many, not a few,” Yancey Strickler, Kickstarter’s co-founder, said in a press release. “Millions of people from around the world made this happen. Congrats to all of you.”
Backers of the site have donated from 224 countries and territories, from every continent.
Citizens of the US have donated a huge majority of the pledges, donating over $663 million, with the UK coming in second place, with $54.4 million.
Canada is the third highest contributing country to Kickstarter, with nearly $45 million donated.
Hosting a campaign was originally exclusive to the US, but since September 2013, Canadians have been able to create their own fundraising campaigns.
This was good news for Humber’s Web Design program co-ordinator, Greg Goralski, who hosted a Kickstarter campaign for his app “Appseed”.
The app, which allows artists to turn their sketches into an interactive prototype on their phones, reached it’s goal of $45,000 on Oct. 9, 2013.
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The most popular campaign type on Kickstarter is gaming, with people pledging over $215 million dollars to game-related campaigns. However, this category also has the fourth worst rate of reaching their goals, with a success rate of only 35 per cent.
The website now has an interactive page, featuring a multitude of impressive statistics, as well as words from users and staff of Kickstarter.
Here are the top three grossing projects that have been hosted on the website, in reverse order.
3) Veronica Mars
In an unconventional campaign, Director Rob Thomas posted a project to fund a film that would continue his CW television series Veronica Mars, starring Kristen Bell. After studios failed to show interest in the film, Thomas took to Kickstarter. With an original goal of $2 million, the company raised neatly $6 million. The film will be released theatrically on March 14.
2) OUYA: A New Kind of Video Game Console
Classified as a rival to Playstation 4’s and Xbox Ones, Ouya is a console that runs on Android Operating system. Every game for the console has varying degrees of free-to-play aspects, with many being completely free, and others using purchasable upgrades or expansions.
Unlike most gaming systems, Ouya endorses players to hack and modify the original hardware, with the design only requiring a screwdriver to open up to the interior design.
The project required a pledge of $950,000, but received donations totalling $8.5 million.
1) Pebble: E-Paper Watch for iPhone and Android.
The highest funded project is Pebble, a customizable Smartwatch, which allows wearers to download apps, change the watch face, connect to iPhones and androids, and play music. It can be worn under water. The project raised $10,266,845 even though it’s original goal was only $100,000. That’s over 10,000 per cent funded.
** Featured image, courtesy amytrippmyers via creative commons flickr