MrCrowdfunding

[mrcrowdfunding]

The TOP15 reward-based crowdfunding sites by traffic in 2014

Because crowdfunding is a mess and because MrCrowdfunding likes straight-forward stuff, a study of the biggest platforms traffic was worthwile. Here are our findings:

1. Kickstarter (35,1M monthly visits)

Founded in 2009, US.

By far the hottest crowdfunding platform on the internet. Kickstarter accepts all major kinds of creative projects but not for causes or awareness campaigns, charity or scholarships.

2. Gofundme (16,4M monthly visits)

Founded in 2008, US.

GoFundMe is made to raise money online, for a cause or for yourself. It could be everything from a personal traveling fee to your pet’s medication fee. It’s truly about donation.

3. Indiegogo (12,7M monthly visits)

Founded in 2008, US.

Quite similar to Kickstarter, Indiegogo is the second most famous platform worldwide. It also accepts charity projects.

4. Patreon (7,7M monthly visits)

Founded in 2013, US.

Patrons pledges to support artists and creators on a reoccurring basis for each work created.

5. YouCaring (2,8M monthly visits)

Founded in 2011, US.

YouCaring is a fundraising website that allows individuals to raise funds for medical expenses, tuition assistance, and mission trips.

6. Causes (2,6M monthly visits)

Founded in 2007, US

Causes helps raise money for projects going from charities to religion, through political parties and candidates.

7. Tilt (1,8M monthly visits)

Founded in 2012, US

Tilt offers a way for family and friends to pool funds for events, causes, and group purchases (like wedding gifts) through fully customizable open-source pages.

8. Crowdrise (1,6M monthly visits)

Founded in 2010, US

Crowdrise is a crowdfunding platform specialized in charity.

9. Giveforward (1,6M monthly visits)

Founded in 2008, US

GiveForward pages empower friends and family to send love and financial support to patients as they navigate a medical crisis.

10. Ulule (1,5M monthly visits)

Founded in 2010, FR

The only non-US crowdfunding platform in the top10. Ulule enables people to raise money for creative and independent projects. It offers a strong support to the project owners.

11. Kisskissbankbank (870K monthly visits)

Founded in 2009, FR

Second French platform of the ranking, Kisskissbankbank accepts all major kinds of creative projects.

12. Fundly (750K monthly visits)

Founded in 2009, US

Fundly is a non-specialized crowdfunding platform, raising funds for non-profits, charities, politics, clubs, schools, teams, churches, and other causes.

13. Fundrazr (670K monthly visits)

Founded in 2008, CA

Non-specialized crowdfunding platform. It accepts individuals with medical expenses, sports teams, artists, non-profit organizations or politicians.

14. Pozible (500K monthly visits)

Founded in 2010, AU

Pozible is a crowdfunding platform for creative projects and ideas.

15. Mymajorcompany (270K monthly visits)

Founded in 2007, FR

One of the first crowdfunding platform in the world, MyMajorCompany was originally focused on music and now accepts all kinds of creative projects.

MrCrowdfunding.com aggregates now 5 of these 15 top crowdfunding websites worldwide. More platforms in the coming weeks. Browse all projects here: www.mrcrowdfunding.com

  All figures are provided by Similarweb and refer to the estimated visit number in September 2014

[mrcrowdfunding]

I finally understood what crowdfunding is!

Crowdfunding is about persuading individuals to pledge a small amount of money, $10, $50, $100, maybe more (the average is around $50) in order to show support to someone’s professional or personal project. The mass effect finally leads to a significant amount of money and enables the project owner to make it happen.

Crowdfunding is one of the modern shapes of solidarity. It brings to mind the mutual aid people used to provide to their neighbors or relatives a few centuries ago. This kind of behaviors reappeared thanks to the Internet and even became much more powerful since it enables project owners to reach unknown people, sometimes massively.

There are today several thousands of crowdfunding platforms around the world, either generalist or specialized on specific types of projects, with fundraising reaching billions of dollars annually.

How it works: The most common type of crowdfunding happens on platforms where donations are pledged in return for special rewards (the leaders are Kickstarter in the US and Ulule in Europe). Some rewards are really symbolic (for example a postcard with special thanks) while some others are comparable to product pre-buying (a piece of design or a technology device for instance).

The projects financed by the crowd go from charities to student associations, through business launches or music album recordings. From a project owner point of view, crowdfunding helps bypassing the banks while allowing to gather the amount needed to start his business.

  It is also possible to use crowdfunding to assemble loans. Loan-based platforms, as they are called, are growing fast and allow members to directly invest in and borrow from each other, with the claim that a bank-free transaction is an advantage for both sides.

Finally, the third type of crowdfunding, which has met a strong success for one or two years, is the one that allows members to take minority stakes in a company, similarly to venture capital.

Advantages:

Crowdfunding makes life easier for startups or early-stage companies by giving them access to convenient financing. Before, a business owner was subject to the caprices of individual angel investors or bank loan officers. Now it is possible to pitch a business plan to the masses.

A successful crowdfunding round not only provides your business with needed cash, but validates your concept (a bit like a market study) and creates a first base of customers.

Furthermore, it could be the beginning of a completely new and more responsible way of running our industry, since crowdfunding makes people choose what products will be manufactured, so that society produces less unsold goods and less waste.

Drawbacks:

A crowdfunding campaign requires months of hard work in order to create your community and insure an efficient communication around your project. Most of crowdfunding sites only transfer the money to the project owner if the fundraising goal is reached – If you fail, that’s a lot of wasted time that could have been spent growing the business some other way.

The major risk for the project owner is a legal one: if you meet your goal but realize afterwards that you underestimated how much money you actually needed. If you promise backers products or perks in return for donations and then fails to deliver, your business risks getting sued.

This leads to an interesting point: what if angel investors and bank officers provided more than just money. What if their true blessing are the advice they provide in order to keep entrepreneurs from failing?

 With the growing number of platforms, searching interesting projects to support requires a lot of time for backers. That's why we created MrCrowdfunding ( www.mrcrowdfunding.com ). It is a simple platform that aggregates the major reward-based crowdfunding sites from Europe and the US and helps you save a lot of time.

As an aggregator, we have a lot of interesting insights to share on crowdfunding, and we will deal each week with a different topic to provide you with some valuable tips.

MrCrowdfunding team

[mrcrowdfunding]

What cool stuff can I buy on crowdfunding platforms with $60?

For $60 I can have:

- 1 fast-charging battery for smartphone ($59)

OR

- 1 bluetooth padlock ($59)

OR

- 1 vintage razor ($49)

OR

- 1 tiny connected breathalyzer ($22) + 1 high-end USB charging cord ($25)

OR 

- 1 tiny tracking device ($29) + 1 video/music streaming stick ($18)

[mrcrowdfunding]

Introducing the first global crowdfunding tracker !

MrCrowdfunding is a platform gathering the projects from all major international crowdfunding websites.

What for?

MrCrowdfunding enables people to quickly find crowdfunding projects, thanks to relevant search criterias, and without losing time by screening a host of platforms.

So far, we gather the two American giants, Kickstarter and Indiegogo, and the two European leaders, KissKissBankBank and Ulule. Other platforms will be aggregated later on.

For whom?

MrCrowdfunding is useful for people curious about crowdfunding, casual backers like you and us, but also professional investors and producers looking to discover great talents (from music to arts, through movies and fashion), and hi-tech companies actively watching at innovations in their space.

Our platform enables us to build a lots of statistics on the crowdfunding space, a global market on which there is very few figures today, though it soared to $5 billion in 2013.

That’s why MrCrowdfunding will publish every trimester a detailed “Barometer of Crowdfunding” setting out all the major stats of the market.

Please take a tour on: www.mrcrowdfunding.com !

[mrcrowdfunding]

Lancement de la première plateforme de veille du crowdfunding !

  MrCrowdfunding est une plateforme web rassemblant les projets des principaux sites de financement participatif internationaux. A quoi ça sert? MrCrowdfunding permet de trouver des projets de crowdfunding rapidement, grâce à des critères pertinents, et sans perde son temps à chercher sur une multitude de plateformes. Nous rassemblons aujourd'hui Kickstarter et Indiegogo, les deux géants américains, ainsi que les deux sites français KissKissBankBank et Ulule qui sont leaders en Europe. D'autres plateformes seront ajoutées ultérieurement. Pour qui? Nous ciblons les simples curieux et investisseurs occasionnels comme vous et nous, mais aussi les investisseurs professionnels et les producteurs (musicaux, artistiques, audiovisuels et de mode) qui cherchent à repérer des projets, ou encore les sociétés hi-tech qui font de la veille sur l'innovation.   Notre plateforme nous permet également d'établir de nombreux statistiques macro-économiques sur le financement participatif, secteur qui a pesé 5 milliards d'euros dans le monde en 2013 et sur lequel il existe pourtant très peu de données. Nous publierons donc désormais chaque trimestre un Baromètre détaillé du Crowdfunding comportant l'ensemble de statistiques du secteurs. N'hésitez pas à faire un tour sur: www.mrcrowdfunding.com !