Yesterday was big news for crowdfunding platform Kickstarter who just announced the passing of $1 billion in pledges. The humongous number was reached by contributions of a total of 5.7 million people around the world. More than half of the sum was pledged during the last 12 months alone.
What are the numbers in our region then? Who’s the biggest backer in Kickstarter crowdfunding within the Nordic and Baltic countries?
That would be Sweden, who has backed independent projects with roughly $7.1 million and is the only country in our region who also got into the global top 10 (7th position, just above Japan).
Second comes Norway with $4,1 million, Denmark narrowly behind with just $10k short from $4 million in total pledges. Russia takes the 4th place with roughly $3,3 million while Finland holds the unchallenged 5th place with ~$2,6 million.
Iceland pledged a total of $500 000, Estonia $240 000 and Latvia pledged ~$190 000. Lithuania totaled roughly $125 000.
In total the ArcticStartup region spent ~$22million in Kickstarter projects.
An interesting note is that while Sweden had the highest number in total pledges and the largest amount of backers, proportionately the highest average contribution was made by Icelanders, who on average pledged ~$348/person, followed by Norwegians who on average spent ~$283/person. In comparison, Swedes averaged ~$225/person.
Worldwide the most active Kickstarter users came from the U.S. who pledged over three times more than the rest of the Top 10 together, a total of ~$663 million. Second highest pledger (yet way below the U.S.) is the U.K. with a total of ~$54 million.
It’s worth mentioning that you can only create a Kickstarter project if you’re located in either the U.S. or the U.K., information that is somewhat connectable with the fact that both of these countries make up the top 2 Kickstarter contributions globally.
While Kickstarter is filled with success stories, especially from the U.S., there’s many stories which have gained widespread attention which originate from a much northern part of the world.
Here’s a few of them:
Double Fine Adventure Game by Norwegian Espen Artzen rounded $3,3 million out the original goal of $400,000.
Memoto, the lifelogging camera from Sweden more than ten folded their $50,000 goal with a total of $550,000 in rounded funds. Today Memoto is known as Narrative Clip.
And finally, Finland’s favourite redhead Ruby, whose programming related adventures will be seen in a children’s book made by Linda Liukas. The book exceeded the original $10 000 Kickstarter goal by $370,000 and melted at least as many hearts.
Crowdfunding seems to be in a good momentum and we at ArcticStartup are eager to see what exciting new projects this year will bring along!
