Kickstarter, the crowdfunding platform that has been key to the realisation of projects like the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, the Pebble smartwatch and the Veronica Mars movie, has surpassed US$1bn in pledges.
The five-year-old site, which allows entrepreneurs to call on public financial support for their projects, said more than half of the US$1bn had been pledged in the last 12 months.
In the past five years, Kickstarter has helped bankroll more than 57,000 creative projects.
“The 5,708,578 people who have backed a Kickstarter project come from 224 countries and territories, and all seven continents,” Kickstarter said in a blog commemorating the milestone.
The blog features an interactive map showing the sources of investment, with the US topping the table with US$663.3m pledged, followed by the UK with US$54m pledged.
Interestingly, despite Ireland’s economic crisis, some 13,356 Irish-based investors had the wherewithal to pledge US$2.38m.
