80 Crowdfunding Statistics You Must See: 2024 Platforms, Impact & Campaign Data

One of the biggest impediments to opening and operating a business is the lack of capital. For this reason, a lot of ideas, while profitable, never get to leave the realm of thought. After all, not everyone can afford the raw materials nor the equipment necessary. This is where crowdfunding enters the picture. Successful campaigns afford more than enough liquidity to empower and sustain businesses. Meanwhile, crowdfunding platforms can also serve as a gauge for how markets will receive one’s products or services. Just how reliable are these platforms? The latest crowdfunding statistics hold the answers.

This write-up tackles the global crowdfunding market size, the biggest crowdfunding platforms, and the different types of crowdfunding. It also touches on the impact of COVID-19 on global crowdfunding and if it’s worthwhile to pursue such amid a pandemic. In perusing the information, budding entrepreneurs can find potential partners to support their businesses alongside the latest entrepreneurship trends. They will also learn the most ideal crowdfunding types and platforms to work with.

General Crowdfunding Statistics

Crowdfunding worldwide has considerably grown over the years and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future. After all, it presents a viable means of raising significant amounts of funds coming from backers around the world. In fact, the latest general crowdfunding statistics reveal that more funders will come from the APAC region in the coming years. And the types of products or businesses funded are varied, be it video games, writing, food, or fashion.

• The global crowdfunding market size was around $30 billion in 2019 with an annual growth of more than 16% from 2021 to 2026 (Mordor Intelligence, 2020).
• In addition, a 2021 market analysis by Technavio reveals that the global crowdfunding market can potentially grow by $196.36 billion from 2021 to 2025 (Technavio, 2021).
• The crowdfunding market is projected to grow by 13.86% in 2021 (Technavio, 2021).
• 62% of that growth will come from the APAC region (Technavio, 2021).
• As far as transactional value is concerned, it is projected to reach $1.05 billion in 2021 and $1.2 billion by 2025 (Statista, 2021).
• The country with the highest transactional value in 2021 is the United States with an estimated $504 million, followed by the United Kingdom ($62 million), France ($52 million), Germany ($42 million), and Australia ($31 million) (Statista, 2021).
• General crowdfunding statistics from Cambridge, however, state that China is the global leader in alternative financing with a native finance volume of $215.4 billion. It is far ahead of the US ($61 billion) and the UK ($10.4 billion) (University of Cambridge Judge Business School, 2020).
• The crowdfunding transactional value in the US is expected to reach $574.3 million in 2025 (Statista, 2021).
• There are 1,478 crowdfunding organizations in the US (Crunchbase, 2021).
• Moreover, 6,445,080 crowdfunding campaigns were held in 2019 (Fundly, 2020).
• Meanwhile, the number of funds raised worldwide amounted to $34 billion (Fundly, 2020).

Crowdfunding Model Statistics

• The leading crowdfunding model in terms of money raised is P2P consumer lending with $195.3 billion. It is followed by P2P business lending ($50.3 billion), balance sheet business lending ($21.1 billion), balance sheet property lending ($11 billion), and balance sheet consumer lending ($9.8 billion) (University of Cambridge Judge Business School, 2020).
• In more general terms, the debts model accounts for the largest share of crowdfunding funds at $297 billion, followed by the equity model ($4.97 billion) and the non-investment model ($1.52 billion) (University of Cambridge Judge Business School, 2020).
• The global amount raised through peer-to-peer lending is $25 billion (Fundly, 2020).
• Meanwhile, reward and donation crowdfunding led to $.5.5 billion in funds raised (Fundly, 2020).
• As for equity crowdfunding, the raised figure was $2.5 billion (Fundly, 2020).

Crowdfunding Platform Statistics

There is a wide selection of fundraising platforms to choose from, each having its set of benefits and specializations. Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and GoFundMe are the biggest ones in terms of user base and are considered among the most versatile platforms in the market. Based on the crowdfunding platform statistics we gathered, Kickstarter is the ideal choice among the three for successful campaigns. But the highest-funded projects often come from Indiegogo.

• Kickstarter has the highest number of completed projects from January 2014 to April 2021 with 383,218 (TheCrowdDataCenter, 2021).
• It is also the platform with the most popular projects, having an average of 135 backers each (TheCrowdDataCenter, 2021).
• However, Indiegogo holds the highest average project funds raised at $172,473 (TheCrowdDataCenter, 2021).
• Interestingly, the highest project success rate belongs to Fundrazr at 42.4%, followed by Kickstarter (37.1%), Crowdfunder.co.uk (16.7%), Indiegogo (12.8%), and Rockethub (6.8%) (TheCrowdDataCenter, 2021).
• In terms of capital raised in the US, the leading platforms for regulation crowdfunding are WeFunder ($70.89 million), StartEngine ($68.6 million), Republic ($37.65 million), Netcapital ($8.18 million), and Microventures ($5.71 million) (KingsCrowd, 2021).
• Crowdfunding platform fees typically range from $4 to $5 (Double the Donation, 2019).
• The cheapest in that regard is GoFundMe, which has 0% platform fees and a payment processing fee of 2.9% (GoFundMe, 2021).

Kickstarter Statistics

• Kickstarter has launched a total of 519,692 projects with a success rate of 38.61% (Kickstarter, 2021).
• In addition, over $5.7 billion has been pledged on the platform to go along with the 199,377 successfully funded projects (Kickstarter, 2021).
• Also, Kickstarter has 19,441,326 total backers who have made 71,092,470 pledges (Kickstarter, 2021).
• On the other hand, the platform has 295,804 unsuccessfully funded projects and 55,338 projects that didn’t receive any funding at all (DMR, 2021).
• On average, a successful project raises around $23,000 while an unsuccessful one receives about $1,500 (The Hustle, 2019).
• The film and video sector receives the most launched projects at 77,010, followed by music (64,266) and games (59,528) (Kickstarter, 2021).
• Meanwhile, the sector with the most successfully launched projects is music with 32,138, followed by film and video (28,903) and games (25,388) (Kickstarter, 2021).

Indiegogo Statistics

• Indiegogo is home to 9 million backers from 235 countries (Indiegogo, 2021).
• The platform also has around 10 million monthly visitors (Indiegogo, 2021).
• About 800,000 campaigns have been launched as well (DMR, 2021).
• Furthermore, 19,000 campaigns are launched on Indiegogo every month (Indiegogo, 2021).
• Meanwhile, the latest Indiegogo statistics reveal that the platform has raised $1.6 billion for startups (Enventys Partners, 2020).
• 47% of high-performing campaigns are run by women (Indiegogo, 2021).
• Indiegogo has amassed 42,830 fully-funded campaigns and 290,544 underfunded ones, resulting in a success rate of 12.8% (TheCrowdDataCenter, 2021).

GoFundMe Statistics

• According to the latest GoFundMe statistics on Similarweb, the platform is ranked 407 in terms of site traffic in the United States (SimilarWeb, 2021), beating out Kickstarter (1,120) (SimilarWeb, 2021) and Indiegogo (3,314) (SimilarWeb, 2021).
• GoFundMe has raised more than $10 billion across over 150 million donations (GoFundMe, 2021).
• 70 million donors use GoFundMe (DMR, 2021).
• In addition, 10,000 new campaigns are started on the platform daily (DMR, 2021).
• Moreover, around $4 million are raised daily on the platform (DMR, 2021).
• GoFundMe is available in 19 countries (GoFundMe, 2020).
• In 2020, 1 in 3 donors sent more than one donation (GoFundMe, 2020).
• More than 110,000 benefited from the donations made in 2020 (GoFundMe, 2020).
• Due to the response to the Black Lives Matter movement, June 2, 2020, has the most donations out of any day in GoFundMe history (GoFundMe, 2020).
• Every 8 seconds, a new GoFundMe fundraiser is started (GoFundMe, 2019).

Impact of Crowdfunding

Given the large amounts of money changing hands from different parts of the globe, crowdfunding has a significant impact on economies. The latest on reward-based crowdfunding statistics indicates that every corner of the globe garners revenues from the campaigns, with North America being the largest beneficiary. As such, professionals with a bankable concept can turn to crowdfunding to take their business ideas off the ground.

For instance, budding software companies can get their software idea funded through the right crowdfunding channels and with proper promotions.

• Crowdfunding added $65 billion to the worldwide economy (Fundly, 2020).
• North America has the largest share of revenues of crowdfunding at $17.2 billion, followed by Asia ($10.54 billion), Europe ($6.48 billion), South America ($85.74 million), Oceania ($68.8 million), and Africa ($24.16 million) (Fundly, 2020).
• The average funding per campaign across all crowdfunding platforms is $5,726. It is projected to increase to $6,874 by 2025 (Statista, 2021).
• The average crowdfunding donation is $99 (Fundly, 2020).
• The sector that has the most active campaigns as of April 2021 is film with 926, followed by technology (392), art (358), music (342), and publishing (326) (TheCrowdDataCenter, 2021).
• Meanwhile, the average individual donation for nonprofit campaigns is $66 (Fundly, 2020).
• In addition, the average pledge in successful campaigns is $178 (TheCrowdDataCenter, 2021).
• Successful campaigns normally have 47 backers (Fundly, 2020).

Crowdfunding Campaign Preparation Statistics

• On average, a crowdfunding campaign lasts for 9 weeks (Fundera, 2020).
• Successful campaigns, on the other hand, last for an average of 113 days (Fits Small Business, 2020).
• Also, successful campaigns usually take 11 days of preparation (Fundera, 2020).
• Campaign admins who shared the campaign less than twice face a failure rate of 97% (Fundera, 2020).
• Campaigns with videos end up raising 105% more funds (Fit Small Business, 2020).
• Meanwhile, the project descriptions of successful campaigns, on average, have a word count of 300-500 words (Fundly, 2020).
• Moreover, individual crowdfunding campaigns normally raise $568 (Fundly, 2020).
• In addition, 42% of funds, on average, are raised on the first and last 3 days with proper promotions (Fundly, 2020).
• Campaigns raise 126% more funds when owners update backers (Fundly, 2020).
• Furthermore, in successful campaigns, campaign owners update backers an average of four times (Fundly, 2020).
• Sharing campaigns by email has a conversion rate of 53%, bigger than Facebook shares (12%) and Twitter shares (3%) (Fundly, 2020).

Interesting Crowdfunding Statistics

While it’s true that anyone can put up a campaign, not all projects attract torrents of backers and sizable donations. One of the most interesting crowdfunding statistics is the case of the video game Star Citizen. After hitting all its financial targets in two years, it continues to rake in donations in 2021. And with the campaign still ongoing, it will reap even more in the future. By the time the campaign is done, it will have carved its place in the gaming industry and would have received a glowing entry on any list of video games industry statistics.

• The highest-funded crowdfunding project is the EOS blockchain protocol by Block.one, which managed to raise $4.1 billion on the Ethereum platform with no live product (CNBC, 2018).
• The video game that received the most crowdfunded donations is Star Citizen, accumulating $353,669,856 across 3,052,959 donors as of April 2021. The campaign is still ongoing (RSI, 2021).
• The Kickstarter projects that raised the most funds as of November 2020 are Pebble Time ($20.34 million), Coolest Cooler ($13.29 million), Frosthaven ($12.97 million), Pebble 2, Time 2—All-new Pebble Core ($12.78 million), and Kingdom Death: Monster 1.5 ($12.35 million) (Kickstarter, 2020).
• As for Indiegogo, the largest campaigns, as of September 2020, are Pamu Slide ($51.49 million), Ninebot MAX ($36.23 million), Shine Ultra ($24.87 million), GPD WIN Max ($22.82 million), and MATE X ($17.59 million) (Indiegogo, 2020).
• The GoFundMe campaign that received the most donations is the George Floyd Memorial Fund with nearly 500,000 donations, raising a total of $14.7 million. It is followed by a campaign to build a wall on the US-Mexican border (300,000 donations) and one for intensive care beds for Italy when it was ravaged by the COVID-19 pandemic (over 206,000 donations) (TMZ, 2020; GoFundMe, 2020).
• 17% of all donations are made using mobile devices (Fundly, 2020).
• Also, the age of most campaign donors is between 24 and 35 years old. (Fundly, 2020).

Crowdfunding in the Time of COVID-19

Surprisingly, there is significant growth in crowdfunding in the time of COVID-19. Even though the industry’s global transaction value slightly declined, the number of investors and investments in platforms like Wefunder soared. So much so that the company even set a single-day investment record amid the pandemic. A lot of campaigns related to the COVID-19 pandemic appeared at the start of the outbreak, and unfortunately so did projects that peddled misinformation.

• The global transaction value of crowdfunding dropped from $1.02 billion in 2019 to $940.9 million in 2020 (Statista, 2021).
• Likewise, the average funding per campaign decreased from $5,943 in 2019 to $5,270 in 2020 (Statista, 2021).
• Interestingly, the number of Kickstarter projects from January to April 2020 experienced an increase of 8.93% over the previous year despite the pandemic (Enventys Partners, 2020).
• Also, the success rate of Kickstarter campaigns in that period is 57.75%, below 2019’s 61.26% but well above the platform’s overall success rate of 37% (Enventys Partners, 2020).
• The number of GoFundMe campaigns related to COVID-19 increased by 736% on the week of March 16, 2020 and another 510% in the following week but declined by 25% in the succeeding week as the number of COVID-19 cases increased (Journal of Medical Internet Research, 2021).
• Wefunder, the largest equity crowdfunding portal, experienced an increase of 35% in investor volume in February-April 2020 (dot.LA, 2020).
• The platform also set a new daily investment record of $2 million in May 2020 (dot.LA, 2020).
• There were 208 GoFundMe campaigns worldwide associated with medical misinformation on COVID-19. These campaigns were able to raise $324,405 from 4,367 donors and were shared 24,158 times (American Journal of Public Health, 2021).

Creating an Effective Crowdfunding Campaign

Crowdfunding continues to be a viable avenue for funding, with the global industry showing consistent growth. More and more budding entrepreneurs and investors are drawn to the wide variety of websites that help people crowdfund online. And platforms like Kickstarter, GoFundMe, and Indiegogo show no signs of slowing down amid COVID-19. In fact, equity crowdfunding even soared during the pandemic, with Wefunder recording remarkable increases in investor and investment volume.

Crowdfunding is clearly a rewarding option if you’re starting a business or launching a new product. However, blindly posting any campaign won’t automatically lead to hundreds of donors or thousands of dollars worth of donations. Some planning is necessary to turn your campaign into a successful one.

As mentioned previously, a successful campaign usually comes with 11 days of preparation. In those 11 days, determine the most suitable platforms for your campaign. There are flexible sites like Kickstarter, GoFundMe, and Indiegogo where you can post any type of campaign, and there are others that specialize in specific campaigns. For instance, Wefunder is the leading name in equity crowdfunding and there are several players that work best for nonprofit campaigns. You have the luxury of posting a campaign on multiple platforms, but there is the risk of dividing your sponsors and your campaign losing momentum, both of which have a huge effect on your campaign’s success rate. Normally, it’s better to stick to one.

After picking a platform, write a campaign description that is clear and concise, but not lacking in information. This is why the ideal length is around 300-500 words. Insert a video and photos of your product or businesses to drum up more interest. With the description posted, devote time to share your campaign with potential and existing sponsors. According to the crowdfunding statistics we gathered, email generates the most conversions, so send messages to your contacts and interested parties. You should likewise share your campaign on Facebook, Twitter, and other relevant sites to expand your mileage.

Within the first week of your campaign, you will have a general idea of how your campaign will perform. If it doesn’t live up to your expectations, increase your promotional efforts to attract more investments until you end up with a successful campaign.

In regard to what product or business to campaign for, you should be aware of what your target wants as well as the latest developments in the realm of business. Check out our feature on the latest entrepreneurship trends to help you determine what you need investments for.

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By Jenny Chang

Jenny Chang is a senior writer specializing in SaaS and B2B software solutions. Her decision to focus on these two industries was spurred by their explosive growth in the last decade, much of it she attributes to the emergence of disruptive technologies and the quick adoption by businesses that were quick to recognize their values to their organizations. She has covered all the major developments in SaaS and B2B software solutions, from the introduction of massive ERPs to small business platforms to help startups on their way to success.