Crowdfunding made a big splash in 2014, as people turned to the Internet to help fund projects, dreams and sometimes just life in general. If you had any doubt as to the impact of crowdfunding last year, look no further than Kickstarter's "2014: By The Numbers" blog post.
Numbers don't lie, and Kickstarter has plenty of them. The site is one of the premiere crowdfunding destinations on the web, and the site last year alone had people pledge $529 million (more than $1,000 a minute) to help make more than 22,000 Kickstarter projects a reality. Keep in mind that these numbers are only for projects that were successfully funded -- there is no telling how much money was pledged to projects that eventually fell through and saw the donations refunded.
Along with all the data come some interesting trends. Film/Video and Music by far made up the majority of successfully funded projects (3,846 and 4,009 respectively), but when you look at the amount of money flowing into each category the graphs completely change. Despite only seeing 1,124 successfully funded technology projects, Tech proved to be where the vast majority of pledges went towards and makes up the majority of the most backed projects this year. Tech-related projects brought in $125 million in funding, with Design placing second with $96.7 million and Games (both electronic and tabletop) a close third with $89.1 million.
The majority of pledges came from people living within the United States, but more than 3.3 million people backed a project in 2014, with nearly every country represented.
Kickstarter also released some interesting data about pledging habits. Turns out Wednesday is the most popular day for pledges, with the weekend bringing in a surprisingly low amount of pledges. This is likely because most new projects launch their campaigns in the middle of the week, as opposed to the weekend. As for what time of day is the most popular for pledging? Early afternoon, between noon and 2 p.m.
That data should prove useful for anybody looking to launch a Kickstarter in 2015. As for the rest of us, seeing just how much people are willing to donate to see a new idea brought to life is a sure sign that crowdfunding is here to stay.
