What data on Kickstarter projects in Kitchener-Waterloo reveals

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Although Waterloo region is known as a tech hub, the most popular recent crowd-funding campaigns fall into either the design or games categories, a new CBC data analysis project shows.

CBC reporter Roberto Rocha crunched data for Kickstarter over six years, analyzing almost 10,000 crowdfunding projects across Canada to learn about the country's entrepreneurs, and what kinds of projects are the most popular. 

• What 10,000 Kickstarter projects reveal about Canada's entrepreneurs

Anyone can donate money to fund a project, usually in return for a reward: early access to a new product, a T-shirt, or dinner with the creators. The more one gives, the juicier the reward.

Most likely to...

Overall, Rocha found that only a third of Kickstarter campaigns succeed, with theatre, comics and design crowdfunding campaigns most likely to be successful.

Only about a third of crowdfunding campaigns actually succeed. Food, journalism and technology campaigns are the least likely, though tech campaigns attract some of the most generous individual pledges, on average $120 per backer.

A prime example of a design blockbuster project was Andrew Gardner's Polar Pen, which CBC K-W covered in 2013. Gardner planned to raise just $14,000 to make his magnetic pen and stylus, but ended up raising $817,164 from 14,253 backers, who were drawn by the pen's magnets along with its ability to be turned into a spinning top. 

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But Gardner was forced to move product assembly, packaging and distribution out of the country after Health Canada decided the pen posed a danger to human health. Its concern was that the small, powerful magnets could be harmful if swallowed by children.​

Backers of Gardner's project would also have been drawn by low price. A pledge of $35 dollars would net them a pen, while further funding options could seem them upgrade to fancier magnets and a stylus tip.

That amount is well under the average amount Canadians pledge of $87, to a crowdfunding campaign.

Prismata game popular

The next most popular Kickstarter project in Waterloo region was the Prismata online game, founded by Will Ma and Elyot Grant, who both dropped out of their PhD programs at MIT and joined their friend Alex Wice to make the game. The trio based their company in Waterloo and raised $140,000 from 3,783 backers to fund improvements to the game including sounds, interface graphics, character art. The money also paid for server costs and a marketing intern.

• Waterloo friends quit PhDs at MIT to make online strategy game

​Prismata is a turn-based strategy game, a combination of chess and card games like Magic: The Gathering. ​​

Cancelled campaign relaunches

When a Kickstarter campaign doesn't reach its funding goal, the money is returned to the backers, and the people behind the campaign don't see any of it. 

The data shows that most successful projects ask for less than $10,000.

A great example of this is Amulya Sanagavarapu, who launched a Kickstarter in January of 2014 to create a line of feminist-themed underwear that emphasizes consent, with slogans like "My dress does not mean yes" and "Ask me what I like ;)" on them. She raised just over $25,000 from 814 backers, well short of her goal of $150,000, but it still made her campaign one of the most popular in the region.

Sanagavarapu relaunched the Kickstarter in March of 2014, set her goal at $25,000 and raised $25,399 from 513 backers. She has since created an online store to sell the underwear.

Structur3D Printing

There were a few notable successful tech campaigns in the region, including Structur3D Printing's campaign to build a 3d printer extruder head, which allows users to print paste materials.

• 3D printer device that uses silicone, icing surpasses Kickstarter goal on 1st day

The campaign hit its goal of $30,000 in less than 24 hours. The device, called the Discov3ry Extruder, can attach to filament-based desktop 3D printers, and lets users print with soft materials like wood filler, silicone, clay and even Nutella.