The world's largest crowd funding platform, Kickstarter, announced Monday that it has exceeded $1 billion pledges. The money would then be used to finance several promising projects.
Kickstarter is a company that aims to help bring creative projects to life. Since its launch on April 28, 2009, it has helped more than 50,000 projects already. It collects money from the public to perform its mission.
To date, the games category on Kickstarter, which has a success rate of 35.15 percent, has received most of the pledges amounting to $215.75 million, with $189.84 million going to campaigns. It is followed by the technology category at 34.79 percent, publishing category at 32.39 percent, and fashion category at 29.3 percent.
According to Tech Times, 62 percent of all the pledges received are from returning backers -- 689,979 people have backed more than one project and 15,932 people have backed over 50 projects. Additionally, more than half of the pledges Kickstarter has received came in during the past 12 months. Majority of the backers was from the United States, followed by Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom.
For some reasons, they have noticed that most of the pledges, roughly $150 million, came in during Wednesdays. They also noticed that companies using the platform considered 13 as a very lucky number as the 13th month collected the most money - approximately $37 million, while the single pledge record, when 54, 187 donors pledged $4,029,585.45 to 1,985 projects, was set on March 13, 2013.
Kickstarter clarified that they have no control on what projects get the funding. There is no backing system or favoritism. Funding for projects is all-or-nothing. Meaning if the deadline and minimum funding goal set by the project creators aren't met, no funds will be collected. It is a form of assurance contract.
Fortunately, the mechanics are proven effective in creating drive and unity in individuals involved in the project.