Creative business in the UK looking for funding will
have a new option when the US based site Kickstarter launches on
this side of the pond this autumn.
Kickstarter is a crowd funding website for creative projects
that launched in New York as a tool to help community arts projects
in 2009. Kickstarter has a funding success rate of 44% and has
launched over 62,000 projects raising $229m.
Unlike many UK based crowd funding platforms, investors on
Kickstarter do not receive equity in the ideas they fund, instead
people set a fund raising goal for their project and investors
receive rewards in proportion to their financial involvement. For
example, an iPhone dock design project called 'Evoltution Dock'
promised to give anyone who pledged $59 or more an iPhone dock.
They were able to raise more than $1.4m from over 12,000
backers.
Kickstarter has funded a variety of projects from films,
consumer products, video games and food related goods, including a
point-and-click adventure game, called Double Fine Adventure, that
raised $3m and the Pebble, an electronic paper smart watch that
raised of $10m.
Currently, UK based projects are not accepted on Kickstarter
because it uses Amazon's payment system which a US bank account.
Despite the restrictions, some UK businesses have managed to
receive funding through Kickstarter by partnering with a US
organisation. For example, the company behind the video game
Carmageddon, Stainless Games, based in the Isle of Wight, raised
$625,143 through the site to create a sequel.
Kickstarter will face strong competition in the UK as there are
already several other crowd-funding options available, such
PeopleFund.It, Crowdcube and Crowdfunder.