Crowdfunding Report 2013 on CNXSoft Blog

Crowdfunding has really took off in 2013, with sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo, as they enable start-ups to launch new and innovative products, and some established, even large companies, I’m thinking Canonical with Ubuntu Edge here, have also tapped into that market, actually shifting part of the risks from shareholders, to customers / individual funders.

In this post, I’ll go through all the crowdfunding projects, 16 Indiegogo and 25 Kickstarter campaigns, featured on cnx-software.com between the beginning of December 2012 till the end of November 2013, to find out which ones have been a stellar success in terms of funding and on-time delivery, and those that have failed in one way or another, with some being close to looking like scams. There was a wide range of products with dealing home automation, the Internet of things, wireless Arduino compatible boards, Linux development boards, media players and more.

Let’s go straight to the subject with a table sorted chronologically.

Date	Project	Crowdfunding Site	Funded? Pledged amount / Goal	Expected Delivery	Actual Delivery	Comments
6. Dec. 2012	StickNFind	Indiegogo	Yes $931,870 / $70,000	03/2013	04/2013	There does seem to be quite a few complains on their Facebook page however
3. Jan. 2013	PlayJam GameStick	Kickstarter	Yes $647,658 / $100,000	04/2013	10/2013
11. Jan. 2013	Crystalfontz CFA-10036	Kickstarter	No $12,184 / $30,000	03/2013	–	The board is now available from the company website
21. Feb. 2013	CoolShip	Indiegogo	Yes (Amount unknown)	04/2013	Delayed to eternity	The Indiegogo page is gone, the company (Focuswill) website too, and nobody ever got their device. The project owner apparently took the money, saw he could not make profit, and ran with the money.
7. Mar. 2013	The Mojo	Kickstarter	Yes $100,490 / $7,000	04/2013	04/2013
20. Mar. 2013	RFDuino	Kickstarter	Yes $352,700 / $5,000	07/2013	10/2013	Shipping took place is several batches over 1 month starting in mid-October
12. Apr. 2013	UDOO Board	Kickstarter	Yes $641,614 / $27,000	09/2013	10/2013	Boards shipped in several batches in October
29. Apr. 2013	CoAction Hero	Kickstarter	Yes $12,110 / $10,000	07/2013	09/2013
2. May. 2013	DroneShield	Indiegogo	Yes $8,708 / $3,500	09/2013	09/2013	Only a few units were shipped in September to people willing to be beta testers, and more units have been shipping slowly, with all items shipped by the end of December
28. May. 2013	Aithon Motor Control Board	Kickstarter	No $8,460 / $18,000	09/2013	–	Allegedly working with STMicro to complete the board design, but no news since June 2013.
5. Jun. 2013	Scanadu Scout	Indiegogo	Yes $1,664,574 / $100,000	03/2014	–
14. Jun. 2013	Digitstump DigiX	Kickstarter	Yes $107,783 / $50,000	09/2013	11/2013
17. Jun. 2013	Stealth Nighthawk F-117A	Indiegogo	Yes and No (Flexible campaign) $7,404 / $40,000	08/2013	–	The company promised the device to backers, but to date none of them received anything
20. Jun. 2013	Fargo Ethernet Boards	Kickstarter	Yes $20,605 / $10,800	09/2013 12/2013 (R4DI)	10/2013 –	About 15 days delay for the first board, and probably about the same for the next one.
21. Jun. 2013	Babuino Stick & Board	Indiegogo	No $9,241 / $40,000	10/2013	–	The project appears to be canceled
23. Jun. 2013	BLEDuino	Kickstarter	Yes $75,126 / $15,000	11/2013	Delayed	Delivery might occur in February
26. Jun. 2013	Peloton Bike	Kickstarter	Yes $307,332 / $250,000	11/2013 (US)	Delayed	Probably January in the US
30. Jun. 2013	Wimoto Motes	Indiegogo	Yes $115,366 / $22,000	09/2013	Delayed	Maybe early next year
10. Jul. 2013	Lernstift Digital Pen	Kickstarter	No £26,794 / £120,000	11/2013	–	Development is still going on
13. Jul. 2013	The Plug (renamed to Lima)	Kickstarter	Yes $1,229,074 / $69,000	12/2013	Delayed	Delayed at least until spring 2014 due to software redesign
20. Jul. 2013	WigWag	Kickstarter	Yes $454,976 / $50,000	11/2013	Delayed	Probably at least 3 months delay
23. Jul. 2013	Ubuntu Edge	Indiegogo	No $12,814,216 / $32,000,000	05/2014	–	Project canceled, but Ubuntu will be found on other phones
24. Jul. 2013	Red Pitaya Board	Kickstarter	Yes $256,125 / $50,000	12/2013	Delayed	Delivery now expected for February 2014
25. Jul. 2013	Borderless Arduino Board	Indiegogo	Yes $164,303 / $12,000	09/2013	09/2013	There was however some issues with some parcels, which are almost resolved now.
2. Aug. 2013	OVO Media Player	Indiegogo	Yes and No (Flexible campaign) $37,051 / $100,000	10/2013	10/2013
4. Aug. 2013	The “Smart Charger”	Indiegogo	No $4,306 / $80,000	11/2013	–	Project canceled?
12. Aug. 2013	HackRF SDR Platform	Kickstarter	Yes $602,960 / $80,000	01/2014	–
21. Aug. 2013	SparqEE CELLv1.0	Kickstarter	Yes $72,155 / $70,000	11/2013	Delayed	Delivery now expected for January 2014
22. Aug. 2013	Iteaduino Plus	Indiegogo	Yes and No (Flexible campaign) $6,319USD / $20,000	09/2013	09/2013	On-time but shipping without tracking took a long time.
23. Aug. 2013	Sky Drone FPV HD	Indiegogo	No $30,174 / $80,000	12/2013	–	Project has carried on, and Sky Drone is available for pre-order via their website
29. Aug. 2013	Flutter	Kickstarter	Yes $149,906 / $80,000	04/2014	–
30. Aug. 2013	Pressy	Kickstarter	Yes $695,138 / $40,000	03/2014	–
7. Oct. 2013	Wizarm PVR MediaBox	Indiegogo	Yes and No (Flexible campaign) $7,346 / $200,000	04/2014	–	This flexible campaign did not reach their funding target, but backers have been promised to receive the device, as development and production will go ahead
10. Nov. 2013	Ubuntu for Raspberry Pi	Indiegogo	Yes £2,567 / £2,500	04/2014	–
11. Nov. 2013	The VERVE	Kickstarter	Yes $38,617 / $20,000	12/2013	Delayed	Delivery now expected for mid-January 2014
14. Nov. 2013	NinjaSphere	Kickstarter	Yes AUD $397,346 / $115,000	03/2014	–
20. Nov. 2013	Touch Board	Kickstarter	Yes £122,907 / £15,000	03/2014	–
21. Nov. 2013	Neptune Pine SmartWatch	Kickstarter	Yes CAD $801,224 / $100,000	01/2014	–
22. Nov. 2013	1Sheeld Arduino Shield	Kickstarter	Yes $85,210 / $10,000	05/2014	–
23. Nov. 2013	Qubi Android Media Center	Kickstarter	No $34,032 / $500,000	07/2014	–	Project will go forward on its own
24. Nov. 2013	AlmaDom.us	Indiegogo	No $663 / $150,000	06/2014	–	Campaign still in progress (sort of)

Hall of Shame

Let’s get the projects with the worse possible outcome – backers money transferred to project owner, but perks never delivered – out of the way first. The worst project featured on CNX Software has to be FocusWill Coolship. This Linux keyboard powered by Rockchip RK3066 seemed promising, but the funds have just gone to money heaven, as the devices were never delivered, the Indiegogo page has disappeared, as well as FocusWill website, the company behind the project.

Stealth Nighthawk F-117A, not the fighter jet, but an HDMI TV Stick based on Broadcom BCM2835 (as found in the Raspberry Pi) capable of running XBMC, comes in second. The campaign was never successful, as it raised $7,404 out of $40,000, but the company still got the money thanks to Indiegogo flexible funding option. The company promised the device to backers, but none of them seem to have received it.

Most Projects Are Delayed

Out of the 41 campaigns, 9 projects did not get funding at all. Out of these 9, only 2 or 3 appear to have definitely been canceled, with the others just carrying development and manufacturing on their own. So a total of 5 products will never seen the light of day, meaning although 75.6% of projects get funded, 87.8% of products may be mass-produced. The Crowdfunding reality is probably much lower, as projects getting media exposure are obviously the most interesting ones.

Failure to meet the estimated delivery is a recurring issue with most crowd-funded projects. Many are just delayed one of two, but some others go way beyond that time frame, such as PlayJam GameStick (6-month delay), and the “Plug”, now called Lima, with project completion now estimated to be in spring 2014 instead of December 2013.

Hall of Fame

The Mojo, an FPGA development board which raised an impressive $100,000, well over their initial $7,000 funding target, appears to be the only fully funded project that delivered perks on time. The project was successfully funded on March 24, 2013, and according to updates and comments, the boards shipped in April, just as promised.

Special mentions go to:

• The UDOO board, as they were very successfully with over $640,000 pledge for the Freescale i.MX6 Linux and Arduino boards, and manage to deliver most perks in October (Starting on the 4th), against a promised delivery in September.
• Iteaduino Plus, despite failing to gather the complete funds, still received orders because the project was on a flexible funding campaign, and managed to ship perks on September 2013, just as promised. Actual delivery took a long time however, even 2 months in some cases, due to the shipping method used.

That’s all for today. If you have a good or bad crowd-funding experience to share, feel free to do so in the comments section.

Merry Xmas everyone !!!

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