TOP TECH STORIES OF THE YEAR

TOP TECH STORIES OF THE YEAR

Crowdfunding comes of age

Trudging through the trail of 2012 tech stories and yanking out the best was an onerous task. After much scrutiny, we have unearthed the absolute best.

Who would have thought that a start-up that is geared towards raising money using the crowd for funding other start-ups and events would become so successful?

Kickstarter epitomizes the crowd-funding phenomenon that is helping start-ups bypass the traditional world of venture funding and go directly to users. Other than raising money, Kickstarter provides the opportunity for start-ups to get validity; if users want to drop dollars on your start-up they will also be interested in your service right?

Here’s how it works. A start-up puts out a poster talking about how much funding it needs, and by when it needs it. Users who believe that the start-up has a recipe for success chip in with how much they can. There is a clock ticking with a deadline by which they need to raise the cash.

Kickstarter has become very successful at helping start-ups raise funds Eric Migicovsky for example wanted to raise $100,000 for his Pebble watch. He ended up raising $7.8 million!

Kickstarter maybe the poster child for crowdfunding, but they are not alone, other crowd-funding platforms include Indiegogo, Crowdfunder and Fundable.