Kickstarter was first founded in 2009 as an ingenious way to crowdfund projects that may have got very little attention outside of the internet. Those who didn’t want to go down the angel investor route of funding their creative idea could pitch their new product to millions of people on the internet, in return for early access or other rewards. Over the years, Kickstarter has raised billions of dollars worth of investment in some of the coolest products known to man. Here are some of the best things that were backed on this innovating crowdfunding platform.
Pebble
We couldn’t not feature the record-breaking Kickstarter campaign for the Pebble. In 2012, the Palo-Alto company decided to put their brand new innovation on the crowdfunding platform, to see how much interest it would get. They ended up raising 10,266% of their goal, bringing their total to a whopping $10,266,845! As if that wasn’t enough, they went on to break more records and became the most funded campaign in Kickstarter history with their second offering, the Pebble Time. It raised an impressive $20,338,986 back in March 2015.
Exploding Kittens
If you like kittens and explosions, then you’ll probably like the Exploding Kittens board game. We have a feeling this did so well thanks to the big names behind the game, including the cartoonist for The Oatmeal, and two game designers from Xbox and Marvel. This Russian Roulette-esque game is an absolute riot to play and quickly became the most backed campaign ever on Kickstarter. 219,382 people backed the campaign and helped raise $8,782,571 (87,825% of its goal) back in February 2015.
Coolest Cooler
What’s cooler than being cool? Ice cold! The Coolest Cooler really is pretty cool, and so it should be as it took ten years to make. Ryan Grepper, the inventor, had previously tried other products on Kickstarter with no luck. However, when he unveiled the Coolest Cooler, the whole internet went wild. It knocked the first Pebble watch off of the charts (until the second one came along) to become the most funded Kickstarter campaign of all time. $13,285,226 was raised for the coolbox back in August 2014.
OUYA
When the creators of OUYA first put their product on Kickstarter, they started with a pretty modest $950,000 goal. Little did they know that this goal was to be blown out of the water after people fell in love with the Android console that could be hooked up to your TV. The project was funded on August 9, 2012, hitting an impressive $8,596,474. The aim was to create a console that was less expensive and which inspired innovation, and they certainly did that. Developers can build their own games on the console, and it’s still pretty popular today – five years after it was funded!
There are thousands of projects being launched on Kickstarter every single day; some that are funded and some which just miss their goal. However, these definitely stand out as being the best things that were backed on Kickstarter. We just wish we had the money (and the sense) to back them from the start.
