As Kickstarter Evolves, Investors Watch For Next $1 Billion Idea
Most of the projects on Kickstarter are quirky, small and artisanal — take the example of the glow-in-the-dark dog collar — but in one corner of the online bazaar, the projects are about the numbers. Some investors visit Kickstarter in search of the next billion-dollar company.
On the crowdfunding site, if you pledged $69 to LIFX you were basically pre-ordering a LIFX smart bulb, says LIFX founder Phil Bosua. The light bulbs blink when you get a text, along with other features. After raising over $1 million on Kickstarter, LIFX made a killing with professional investors, who put in an additional $2.1 million, Bosua says.
"Then about eight to nine months later, we raised another $2.5 million," he says.
Another Kickstarter venture, FormLabs, did even better. The company hopped online to sell a 3-D printer and prove that designers, as a class, want one.
"I don't mean a few designers," says Sam Jacoby, FormLabs marketing director. "I mean a few hundred thousand designers, a million designers."
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