2024 in Crowdfunding: BackerKit’s Biggest Moments That Shaped the Year

• Over 4x growth in projects launched
• Over 2x growth in funds raised
• 70% growth in new users

We couldn’t be more thrilled to see our platform continue to grow alongside the talented creators who are bringing their boldest ideas to BackerKit Crowdfunding and achieving some of their best and biggest campaigns yet. 

To celebrate these creators, their fans, and the many milestones we’ve marked together, we’re listing some of the most record-breaking moments, rule-breaking innovations, and groundbreaking collaborations that defined the year.

We’ll also share some of our latest product developments and what’s ahead for 2025. 

A year of record-breaking creators and campaigns

From the biggest and most inventive crowdfunding projects to pioneering Collab-Funding campaigns, creators continued to amaze us and their fans in 2024.

Below are just some of the boldest creators and and campaigns that shaped the year, and reshaping crowdfunding as we know it.

Mothership Month Group-Collab by Tuesday Knight Games

Tuesday Knight Games brought the Mothership fandom to BackerKit with the first-ever Mothership Month which ran from Nov. 12 to Dec. 10. 

Launching multiple projects centered on the award-winning Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG by Tuesday Knight Games, Mothership Month was the first of its kind Group-Collab to feature a collaboration between a creator and their third-party publishing (3PP) community. 

Together they promised “30 days of terror” to the tens of thousands of fans and backers who joined in – and they delivered just that, and so much more.  

Mothership Month collectively raised $1,001,068 and now holds the record for:

• 🏆 #1 Highest-funded BackerKit Group-Collab 
• 🏆 #1 First Group-Collab to reach $1 million in funding
• 🔥 #1 Fastest-funded BackerKit Group-Collab, all projects funded in the first 12 hrs.
• 🏆 #1 Longest Overtime Mode on BackerKit, lasting 2 Days and 27 minutes and raising $79,825, expanding the total funds raised by 9%. Mothership Month is also the first Group-Collab to extend into Overtime Mode

Wages of Sin, Tuesday Knight Games’ Mothership Month project, also set the following new records for the creator, becoming the:

• #2 Highest-funded Tuesday Knight Games campaign raising $483,428, second only to the Mothership RPG Box Set (2021) 
• #2 Highest backer count for Tuesday Knight Games

More Mothership Milestones illustrate the pledge-inducing power of the Group-Collab. 

• 68% net new backer rate: On average about two-thirds (68%) of backers who pledged to a Mothership Month Group-Collab project were brand new to that creator. Just under a third (32%) of backers were part of the creator’s existing email audience.
• 45% of backers backed more than one (1) project and generated 72% of all total funds raised
• 31% of backers backed five (5) or more projects, generating 61% of all funds and gaining access to the Supply Pod Group-Collab incentive.
• On average, backers pledged to 3.39 projects — over 2x the average amount of projects a backer backs each year
• 105 backers backed all projects

More 2024 Collab-Funding successes:

The history-making Words of Radiance Leatherbound by Brandon Sanderson, Dragonsteel

A campaign so highly anticipated, its gravity before and throughout the campaign was simply inescapable. 

Words of Radiance Leatherbound by Brandon Sanderson / Dragonsteel Entertainment became the most funded campaign on BackerKit, raising a whopping

 $23,756,818 in funding with the support of 102,089 backers.

• #1 Fastest to reach $10m in crowdfunding
• #1 Biggest Day-1 total in crowdfunding (first 12 hours)
• #2 Most funded crowdfunding project of all time
• #2 Most engaged backer community of any crowdfunding campaign
• #3 Highest number of backers of any crowdfunding campaign 
• And more..

See all that went behind this historic campaign.

Creators’ Best Project Ever on BackerKit 2024

Below are just some of the dozens of creators who ran a crowdfunding campaign on BackerKit this year and scored their best projects yet. 

• MCDM Productions – The MCDM RPG ($4,598,045)
• Steve Jackson Games – Munchkin Big Box ($1,313,127) >> See the case study
• Atlas Games – Ars Magica Definitive Edition ($841,123)
• Two Little Mice – Household – Welcome to the Garden (€530,124)
• RoaminBison – Weighted Wonders – Weighted & Warmable Dragon Plush ($525k and climbing!) Now live and on pace to becoming the biggest plushie project of all time. 
• LittleSofts – Snug-Alongs Plush Backpacks ($306,505)
• Shadowlands Games – Scions of the Dark Goddess ($239,250)
• Jason Furie x Skinner – Realm Runners ($207,763)
• Chimera Bunny – Frog Bag collection + bug stickers ($179,901)
• Billie Bust Up – Billie Bust Up: Orchestra Edition ($169,642)
• SugaryCarousel – My emotional support Sugarbell Pals ($150,410)

Related: Discover more record-breaking creators on BackerKit

A year of groundbreaking collaboration

This year we unveiled Collab-Funding–a new way to crowdfund found only on BackerKit. Now you can partner with one or several creators to launch bigger and better campaigns, together. 

Be it through Cross-Collabs, Group-Collabs, or Topias, creators of all types and sizes are launching collaborative crowdfunding campaigns that are consistently seeing outsized returns, like: 

More fans: Collab-Funding features facilitate and automate cross-promotion and discovery. On average about two-thirds (68%) of backers who pledged to a Mothership Month Group-Collab project were brand new to that creator.

More funds: Collab-Funding spurs multi-project pledging. 50% of Pintopia 2024 backers pledge to more than one project, and 31% backed 3 or more. For Cross-Collab projects, the share of overlapping backers pledging to both campaigns have reached as high as 80%.

And way more fun: Collab-Funding projects are more likely to fund, and creators who participate are more likely to Collab-Fund again. Projects that are part of a Topia, Group-Collab, or Cross-Collab exhibit a 95%+ success rate. Half (50%) of all Pintopia 2024 creators are coming back to launch again in Pintopia 2025 this January.

2024 also marked the year when Backerkit launched and hosted more Topias than ever before.

Pintopia 2024 brought over 100 creators to launch enamel pin projects and collectively raised nearly $1M. We then launched Comictopia and Booktopia later in the year which together raised over $800k. 

Follow the Topias launching in early 2025

• 💖 Pintopia 2025 is back for a 3rd straight year with nearly 200 enamel pin creators – the biggest batch of creators so far – all launching together on January 25. Follow Pintopia now.
  

• 🎲 Pocketopia 2025 is the first is our brand new Topia event launching on March 13 centered around portable, easy-to-learn tabletop and TTRPG projects.

New Collab-Funding features to try now

Working closely with this year’s batch of pioneering creators, we’ve made enhancements in just the past few months that make Collab-Funding easier than ever to try and more powerful to run. Now you can: 

Discover and invite recommended creators to Cross-Collab. We’ve built in the ability to view top recommended creators with whom you can collaborate with based on several criteria – including backer audience overlap, project category, and more.

Once you’ve found a creator you like, click the “Request Collab” button which sends an automated message requesting a collaboration with that creator. When the collaboration is accepted, both creators receive an email with one another’s contact info to kick off their Cross-Collab planning.

Try it now: BackerKit Crowdfunding creators can click on the Cross-Collab tab in the left nav to explore recommended creators. Have yet to sign up? Get your free BackerKit account.

Enable Group-Collab Overtime Mode. If one project in the Group-Collab goes into Overtime, all projects in the Group-Collab extend past their original end time and keep going as long as backers keep pledging to at least one of the projects without a ten-minute lapse. Mothership Month enabled Overtime Mode and the pledges kept pouring and tipped them into the $1M threshold.

Automate Cross-Collab Emails. Now give and gain exposure to and from your Cross-Collab partner without ever lifting a finger. BackerKit will now email any backers who pledge to only one of the Cross-Collab projects that features the other Cross-Collab partner project and reminds them of the Cross-Collab incentive they’ll receive if they back the other project.

Related: Discover the 3 ways you can try Collab-Funding today. 

A year of rule-breaking innovation

Crowdfunding was once a strictly solo endeavor, until we released Collab-Funding and offered creators the ability to crowdfund together. 

Other key features we released this year continued to bend and even break crowdfunding rules, allowing creators to break into their best campaigns yet.

Here are just a few releases that challenged the status quo: 

Overtime Mode extends your campaign past its planned end time if, and only if, your backers keep pledging. The suspenseful end  has shown to spike last-minute pledges bringing last-minute backers along for a final runaway Backer Train that climbs to the top of your campaign’s true maximum. Overtime Mode is only available on BackerKit.

Mothership Month was the first Group-Collab to extend into overtime spanning 48 hours and 27 minutes and helping the Collab-Fund cross the $1 million mark. Mothership Month now holds the longest Overtime Mode on BackerKit – a record that was broken three times in 2024 by three different creators.

Pay Over Time allows backers to stretch their pledge amounts across several months, and unlike other crowdfunding platforms that offer delayed payment options that may charge interest, BackerKit Pay Over Time is 100% interest-free. 

We’ve found that projects that have BackerKit Pay Over Time enabled have an average pledge amount 32% higher than projects that don’t. 

Today we’re glad to announce that Pay Over Time is now available to set up for any project. Go to the Payment Setup tab in the BackerKit dashboard to get started. 

Trivia Challenges and Leaderboards gamified your campaign, allowing you to launch a team-based campaign-long trivia battle to keep backer excitement and engagement high throughout the entire project. 

Brandon Sanderson’s Words of Radiance campaign was the first to incorporate this and it’s one of the features that helped them drive the #1 highest-engaged backer community across all Dragonsteel campaigns. 

Check out our 2024 product updates to see all the notable releases this year.

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And that’s a wrap on our most exciting year yet. Thank you for an incredible year of campaigns, collaboration, and creativity.

Here’s to everything you’ll create and achieve in 2025! Happy holidays and an inspired new year from all of us at BackerKit.

What will you launch next? Let’s take crowdfunding to the next level. 🚀

Launch your next project on BackerKit

Sign up for a BackerKit creator account, and get instant access to a suite of offerings that have already set BackerKit apart, including our industry-leading BackerKit Pledge Manager – the first and premiere pledge management software built for crowdfunding.

As a BackerKit creator, you’ll experience:

• Easy and frictionless checkout for your backers.
• Robust campaign reporting and backer data to level up at every stage.
• Responsive customer service and support for you and your backers.
• An active, supportive creator community on Discord and beyond.
• Eligibility for BackerKit Marketing services to boost your campaign.

All you need to make it real.