The world of online crowdfunding has grown rapidly over the last few years, producing a number of high-profile tech projects. Kickstarter has long been the largest and most well known, but its rival Indiegogo has also fostered a number of interesting campaigns, raising an impressive $10 million last year for the Ubuntu Edge and $2 million for the Canary smart home security system. Today Indiegogo announced it had raised $40 million in venture-capital funding, money it says will be used for “making key hires, expanding globally, and improving the user experience with a focus on mobile, personalization, and trust.”
Indiegogo, crowdfunding’s number-two player, raises $40 million to take on Kickstarter
A cash infusion to power aggressive hiring and international expansion
A cash infusion to power aggressive hiring and international expansion
Indiegogo is structured differently than Kickstarter, which has an all-or-nothing approach to raising funds. On Indiegogo, projects that don’t hit their funding goal can still keep the amount pledged, although they must pay a higher commission to Indiegogo for the privilege of the flexible funding option. Indiegogo also does not mandate that projects must have a creative element, as Kickstarter does, and allows campaigns for charitable causes, which Kickstarter does not.
It will take a big push, however, for Indiegogo to catch up with Kickstarter. According to an independent study — which scraped data from both sites but was not peer reviewed — Kickstarter has raised $612 million while Indiegogo's numbers total just $98 million. A study by The Verge found that while more than 40 percent of Kickstarter projects succeed, only one in ten Indiegogo projects meet their funding goals.
Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.
