Kickstarter Raised $20 Million For Musicians In 2011

Kickstarter recently took a look back at 2011 and it was a big year for them and for a whole lot of people whose projects were successful. Over $99 million was pledged overall and over 11 thousand projects reached their funding goal to get their piece of that pie. Even if Kickstarter were the only crowdfunding site in existence, their success is an amazing example of what the Web has made possible and music has been a big part of that success story.

2011: The Year in Kickstarter leads to a variety of recaps, stats and a selection of their favorite pitch videos including:

Kickstarter also released a handy stats report. Film and music were the biggest categories funded.  Here are the music stats:

• $19,801,685.21 Pledged
• 3,653 Successful Projects
• 260,178 Backers

In the comments, Kickstarter's Yancey Strickler clarifies that about 84% of the money pledged is collected so not all the nearly $20 million pledged will be collected though many great projects were funded.

Some projects radically exceeded their goals including three covered at Hypebot:

• An Evening With Neil Gaiman & Amanda Palmer
  Goal: $20,000, Pledged: $133,341
• Girl Walk // All Day
  Goal: $4800, Pledged: $24,817
• QuNeo, 3D Multi-touch Open Source MIDI & USB Pad Controller
  Goal: $15,000, Pledged: $165,914

Though most of the stats such as "Fastest Start" and "Most Improbable Finish" were not music-related, Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer's offering of a commemorative digital download of their show was one of the "Most Popular Rewards ($10 or less)" with 1941 backers.

Hypebot Features Writer Clyde Smith maintains his freelance writing hub at Flux Research and blogs at All World Dance. To suggest topics for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.