Kickstarter is one of the first reward-based crowdfunding platforms launched in the US in early 2009. Since then it has created a global community built around creativity and creative projects. Over 10 million people have backed a Kickstarter project, raising a total of
$ 2.9 billion for 121,778 projects.
However this global expansion has not been straight forward. Today Kickstarter is present in 14 European countries: the United Kingdom, Denmark, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Austria, Belgium, Switzerland, and Luxembourg. European creatives based in countries where Kickstarter is not officially operating, can still launch projects if they have a collaborator or subsidiary in one of the countries where Kickstarter is officially operating. Such restriction does not apply to backers, and currently anyone in the world can back a project on Kickstarter in return for a reward, allowing creatives to appeal to an international backer’s environment.
Kickstarter applies no due diligence to campaigns launched. This means that there are no restrictions to the type of campaigns that can use the platform, be that they fall under one of the 15 categories offered: Music, Film & Video, Publishing, Art, Games, Design, Theatre, Food, Technology, Comics, Fashion, Photography, Dance, Crafts, and Journalism According to data provided to IDEA Consult by Kickstarter, European project holders have raised a total of
€ 357.5 million (US $ 383,071,063) between April 2009 and December 2016.
The Kickstarter website allows creators and backers to interact with one another before, during and after a campaign. Any questions creatives or backers have, can be asked in the Campus and the community (made of backers, campaigners and staff) is encouraged to reply.
By having an interactive and critical community, the crowd acts as a risk identifier for fraudulent campaigns. Kickstarter also encourages backers to be active in pointing out outliers. If project holders fail to address questions asked by the crowd, then people will automatically not trust the project holder and not back the campaign.
