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Kickstarter's Tech Darlings: Where Are They Now?

We hear a lot about crowd-funded tech, but what happened to the biggest funded Kickstarter projects of all?

By Eric Griffith
July 7, 2016
The Top Gadget Kickstarters: Where Are They Now?

There are a lot of great ideas that never get close to becoming products. Crowd-funding makes it possible for a lot of those ideas to get a cash infusion up front, giving them a real shot at making it big. Of course, the more money raised the better the chance the product has, right? Sometimes.

In the US, Kickstarter and Indiegogo are most synonymous with crowd-funding. Kickstarter now supports users in multiple countries like the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, and Spain. It's a brilliantly simple site that makes it easy to pledge your investment (some might call it a "pre-purchase"); it also makes it easier for the people raising money to keep track of funds, and stay in contact with their backers. (Don't think it makes everything that easy: running a Kickstarter, or any crowd-funding campaign, is a LOT of work. Seriously, just a ton. Don't go into it lightly.)

There have been over the years a few multi-million dollar campaigns to come out of Kickstarter, in particular a few for tech gadgetry that so captivated their audience they appeared on the way to becoming household names. Let's take a dive into the most-funded Kickstarter tech toys ever and see what happened to the products in question.

(For more, see 7 Kickstarter Projects That Were Too Good to Be True.)

1. Pebble Smart Watches

Over the course of three different campaigns on Kickstarter for its smartwatches, Pebble has raised north of $43.3 million. The first Pebble SmartWatch in 2012 made $10.2 million while trying to raise $100,000. The second-generation Pebble Time raised $20.3 million (asking for $500,000), making it the biggest money maker in Kickstarter history; it was also the fastest funded, reaching its goal in one hour. The latest campaign this year, for the Pebble 2 and Time 2 with heart monitors built in, asked for $1 million and raised $12.8 million.

Where are they now?
Pebble has delivered all its products to date plus a few that weren't crowd-funded; we gave the original Pebble, the Pebble Time and the Pebble Steel (the latter wasn't crowd funded) Editors' Choice awards. All three lead our list of The Best Smartwatches of 2016.

2. Coolest Cooler

Turns out the Coolest Cooler ($150.00 at Amazon) wasn't all that cool. This unit for taking to the beach or camping or tailgating caught on with the public, which pledged $13.3 million in 2014. That's because it has built-in everything: speaker, blender, USB charging port, and more. In all, 62,642 people backed the cooler.

Where are they now?
Sadly, our review revealed most of those extras to be pretty crappy in implementation, which is hard to take when you've paid $400 for a cooler. The company emailed people earlier this year essentially saying it was out of money (it only took home $7.4 million after Kickstarter and others got their cut of the fees). But don't count it out yet; in June it finished fulfilling 10,400 orders for a $97 option. But as of March 2016 it had backorders of around 36,000 Coolest Coolers yet to deliver to Kickstarter backers.

3. Ouya Video Game Console

Ouya should have been a star in so many respects. A game console sold on the cheap, running Android as the OS, with a design by Yves Behar. It raised a ton of cash-- $8.6 million on Kickstarter from 63,416 backers. It started shipping consoles in March 2013, and later sold them for $99—all less than a year after it was funded.

Where are they now?
Turns out Ouya was pretty, but a stinking turd when it came to playing games. And we all know, you can't polish a turd. Our review said "Ouya could be a great...right now, though, it isn't even close." Everyone else felt the same way; even after getting a $10 million infusion from Alibaba, Ouya had to wind down the business and eventually sold its assets. The software and most employees went to Razer.

4. Pono Music

When a luminary musical figure launches a music service or product, people pay attention. I'm not talking about Jay Z and Tidal though—I'm talking about Neil Young and the PonoPlayer from Pono Music. He helped launch the player on Kickstarter in March 2014, with the goal of a device/service with incredibly high-fidelity music playback. Even CDs were too crappy for Neil. About 18,000 Kickstarter backers agreed with him, funding the project to the tune of $6.2 million, even though they only had a goal of $800,000.

Where are they now?
PonoPlayer went on sale on the site for $399 in January 2015—a pretty quick turnaround for a crowd-funded project. You can still buy one of the triangular players at that full price, and music from the big three music labels is available in the Pono Music store. But Pono doesn't exactly have the same buzz as Tidal or, frankly, any other music service.

5. The Micro 3D Printer

Dubbing itself the "first truly consumer 3D printer," Micro from M3D launched in May 2014, with early backers selling out the $199 or $249 bundles before the $299 regular price took over; at retail it's more like $449. The prices propelled the funding to $3.4 million over the $50,000 goal. It's got an incredibly small build area, making it okay for beginners according to our review.

Where are they now?
By September 2015, just over a year after funding, M3D had delivered 99 percent of its Kickstarter rewards and pre-orders. It says new orders ship within a week. The company grew from seven to 70 people, is using US-based manufacturing only, and will soon launch a larger $499 Pro version (pre-orders begin in August 2016).

6. The Dash—Wireless Smart In-Ear Headphones

Before Apple started talking about killing headphone jacks, others began thinking about the next generation of Bluetooth audio. Dash, out of Germany, came on the scene in 2014 with its (then) unique cordless earphones that do more than that: they have 4GB storage for music, a fitness tracker and heart-rate monitor, a gesture interface, and an ear-bone microphone. The $260,000 goal was surpassed to the tune of $3.4 million from almost 16,000 backers. They now retail on their store for $299 with free shipping to the US and the EU.

Where are they now?
Bragi, the company behind The Dash, set the standard for what companies with wireless earphones should go for, even though not all the reviews have been kind. It didn't make its first ship date in late 2014 while re-tooling the product to support near field magnetic induction, making it easier for the earphones to synch with each other (since only one can sync via Bluetooth to the phone). Since then it's more than caught up, and still seems ahead of a lot of the competition.

7. Tiko 3D Printer

The goal: create an enclosed, uni-body 3D printer that costs only $179. Apparently, it worked. As of April 30, 2015, Tiko by Tiko 3D got fully funded by 16,538 backers for a full $2.9 million.

Where are they now?
Tiko 3D and its new China-based factory are just new enough that it only started shipping to Kickstarter investors this week. Backers in the comments seem okay with that, most saying the just went the best product, not something rushed.

8. Form 1 3D Printer

Formlabs's Form 1 got backed by a small number of people (2,095) way back in October 2012. The almost $3 million bucks raised didn't have to go as far, since the company's 3D printers are far more expensive than the Tiko or the Micro. The current version, the Form 1+, sells for $3,299. But it's not like this is just another FDM 3D printer. Form 1+ "grows" objects out of a liquid resin, which is absolutely fascinating to watch, not to mention makes for objects with beautiful print quality.

Where are they now?
Formlabs finished shipping all of its Kickstarter backer printers by December 2013. We reviewed the Form 1+ in September 2014 and gave it a full 4 stars. It's also now selling a Form 2 model that's even more advanced.

9. Ossic X 3D Audio Headphones

The newest item on this list, Ossic X just got funded in April 2016 when 10,263 backers sent in $2.7 million to get these over-the-hear headphones that promise to calibrate to your head for 3D sound. Turn your head and even that changes how things sound—perfect for gaming (they're definitely more VR than for straight-up music). Early users saved from $120 to $200 on the Ossic X, which sell direct for $399 (but pre-orders today are still $299 at Ossic.com ).

Where are they now?
Ossic has time yet to be late. The first Kickstarters were promised for an estimated delivery of November 2016. As of this writing, people ordering on the website can supposedly still be part of the shipments going out in February 2017.

10. Oculus Rift

It's a little hard to remember now, but the Oculus Rift got its start in 2012 on Kickstarter, sucking in $2.4 million from 9,522 backers who really, really wanted to have a set of VR glasses. Less than a year later, Oculus got another $16 million, but not from crowd-funding; that was full-on venture capital to keep it afloat. The goal at the time was mainly to get Rift into the hands of developers, because who cares about 3D glasses if there are no games? Backers who pledged $300 or more could get the first development kit. Oh, and along came a little company called Facebook in 2014, which bought Oculus entirely... for $2 billion.

Where are they now?
After a lot of prototypes, Oculus announced a consumer version of the Rift in mid-2015, with pre-orders starting in January 2016. At the same time, it said every Kickstarter backer who pledged for a development kit would get one free. Naturally, the shipping got delayed due to too many orders and a parts shortage. We got hold of one and said while the Rift is expensive (at $599, twice the cost of the original development kits!), it's impressive.

11. 3Doodler 3D Printing Pen

12. ZANO - Autonomous. Intelligent. Swarming. Nano Drone.

ZANO - Autonomous. Intelligent. Swarming. Nano Drone.
Wales-based Torquing Group introduced its Zano drone to Kickstarter in December 2014. Controlled by a smartphone, it was all about being affordable, small, and collecting great video footage from the air. It could hold position, be manipulated with gestures, and even be called back to base on auto-pilot. It's had a lot of tech inside for early birds who paid £139; 12,075 backers pledged $2.3 million to get one (or two).

Where are they now?
Torquing has ceased to be. The shipping date slipped a little from summer to fall 2015, then never happened. The few customers who got them weren't pleased with the problems the device had—in a Kickstarter update, the company even said "We would like to make a sincere apology for the understandable disappointment felt by all of those that have supported the project." Torquing came under fire so badly, it finally killed the entire Zano project. Zano's webpage and even Facebook account are all gone now. Kickstarter itself even had an investigative reporter look into what happened.

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About Eric Griffith

Senior Editor, Features

I've been writing about computers, the internet, and technology professionally for over 30 years, more than half of that time with PCMag. I run several special projects including the Readers' Choice and Business Choice surveys, and yearly coverage of the Best ISPs and Best Gaming ISPs, plus Best Products of the Year and Best Brands. I work from my home, and did it long before pandemics made it cool.

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