Most Successful Crowdfunding Campaigns

by Startacus Admin

One of the things we like most about crowdfunding is that is it is fairly undiscriminating when it comes to people's financial ambitions. 

Whether you would like to raise £100 or £10,000,000 you will probably find that crowdfunding is a viable option for you…

...That’s something which could not be said of every form of traditional or alternative business finance!

This universality and broad spectrum appeal has played a significant role in securing crowdfunding’s position as a major source of business finance, and a firm favourite amongst tech-canny entrepreneurs.

Some have seen extraordinary success, not only raising huge amounts of money, but also wildly surpassing the investment targets of their founders.  

Here are a few examples of some of the largest amounts of money ever raised through crowdfunding;   a spot of inspiration which should help incentivise you if ever you consider running your own crowdfunding campaign.  

Coolest Cooler:  Back in 2014 Coolest Cooler shocked the crowdfunding and business finance worlds by surpassing its investment target by an enormous $13M.  The team behind this portable multifunctional cooler (which contains and blender and speaker system) had initially asked for just $50,000 however, by the time the campaign closed in August 2014 they had managed to accumulate well over $13M!

Prison Architect:  It first glance one might not have expected Prison Architect’s crowdfunding campaign to be the roaring success that it was.  The game (which was first released in Sept 2012) is a prison construction and management simulator which has sold well in excess of 1 million copies and raised over $19,000,000 over the course of its campaign!  

The success of Prison Architect stands as testament to the power that crowdfunding can have to challenge notions of what is expected to be ‘popular’ or what could be considered economically viable.

Pebble Time:  You will probably remember hearing about this campaign over the past couple of years; its enormous success has caused it to trend several times on social media.

Pebble Time is the 3rd incarnation of the Pebble smartwatch which also holds the title of one of the most successful crowdfunding campaigns ever.  

Pebble Time reached its target goal of $500K within just 17 minutes of the campaign's launch, surpassed $1M within 49 minutes, and a further $9M within the next 2 days!   Overall the campaign managed to raise $20.4M by the time it reached its deadline.

Elio Motors: You motorheads will love this one!  Founded by Paul Elio is 2008, Elio motors is a Startup American Car manufacturer that is trying to disrupt the motor industry with its innovatively designed 3-wheeled cars.  They feature an extremely high fuel efficiency and very low price point,  a concept that ‘the crowd’ has really taken to, with over $30,000,000 being raised so far!   

Star Citizen:  Star Citizen is a space flight simulator game that is currently in development.  In 2012 its creators Cloud Imperium Games launched a crowdfunding campaign on their wordpress site, which was subsequently paired up with a campaign on Kickstarter.

Together they have raised over $90,000,000 the largest sum ever raised for a single project through crowdfunding and massively ahead of its nearest rival.  

What’s most extraordinary is that the original financial target for the campaign was just $500,000 which means that the team has now exceeded their target some 180 times over!  

We offer free crowdfunding publicity!

Are you thinking of running a crowdfunding campaign? Startacus offers a free publicity and support package to help spread the word about your campaign! Check out all the details here!

Or check out some of the commonsense ways to promote your crowdfunding campaign for a spot of inspiration!

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Published on: 21st October 2015