An artist's rendering of Planetary Resources' ARKYD telescope, which was funded last year on Kickstarter
An artist’s rendering of Planetary Resources’ ARKYD telescope, which was funded last year on Kickstarter

It was a big year for Kickstarter.

The crowdfunding platform released its annual year-in-review slideshow this week, complete with some new numbers about how much people are using the crowdfunding service to give money to creators looking for a push to get their idea off the ground.

According to Kickstarter, 3 million backers pledged $480 million to different projects, leading to the success of almost 20,000 funding campaigns.

The Picobrew Zymatic
The Picobrew Zymatic

The platform’s successes this year include a human-powered helicopter that was able to hover more than a meter off the ground for longer than a minute, winning the long-standing Sikorsky prize, as well as Goldieblox, a toy company founded by a former Seattleite that aims to get girls interested in engineering (though it hasn’t been without its share of controversy).

2013 also saw some major local success stories, including the successful funding of Planetary Resources’s ARKYD satellite, the funding of the Picobrew Zymatic home beer brewing system, and the successful launch of mobile stealth title Republique.

Still, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows.

While pledges on the site rose $160 million from 2012, that only funded 1,800 more projects to completion. From 2011 to 2012, pledges grew by $200 million, and that expansion fueled more than 6,000 more completed projects. It doesn’t seem like we’ve hit peak Kickstarter just yet, but the crowdfunding platform’s growth seems to be tapering off.

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