Short answers, pulled from the story.
Kickstarter launched on the 28th of April 2009, founded by Perry Chen, Yancey Strickler, and Charles Adler. The company is based in Brooklyn, New York City, and operates as an American public benefit corporation.
As of April 2025, Kickstarter has received US$8.71 billion in pledges from 24.1 million backers, funding 277,302 projects across categories including film, music, games, technology, and publishing.
Kickstarter charges a 5% fee on the total amount of funds raised. An additional 3-5% fee is applied by its payments processor, and Kickstarter claims no ownership over the funded projects or their work.
As of mid-2025, the most funded Kickstarter project is the eufyMake E1 personal 3D-texture UV printer by eufyMake, which raised $46,762,258. Brandon Sanderson's "Surprise! Four Secret Novels" campaign ranks second, having raised $41,754,153 from 185,341 backers.
As of the 4th of December 2019, Kickstarter's overall success rate was 37.45%. Research by Wharton professor Ethan Mollick found that projects featured on the Kickstarter homepage succeeded 89% of the time, versus 30% for those that were not featured.
Yes. On the 18th of February 2020, Kickstarter employees voted 46 to 37 to join the Office and Professional Employees International Union, forming the union Kickstarter United. By the 2nd of May 2020-60% of the workforce had joined. In 2025, the union went on a 42-day strike and secured a codified four-day workweek and protections against replacement by generative AI.