A new Portland startup wants to be the highly-curated, more reliable version of Kickstarter — and now it has more funding to do so.
Crowd Supply today announced a second seed round of $585,000 led by the Portland Seed Fund, with participation from SOSVentures, Inspiration Ventures, and other angel investors.
The money will help Crowd Supply build out its crowdfunding site for engineers and hardware geeks. The startup, founded in 2012, says that it has the highest success rate of any crowdfunding platform and a perfect record for product delivery.
The six-person team at Crowd Supply does this by screening products and creators to help identify the ones that will have the best chance for success. It also acts somewhat like an incubator, offering campaign strategy development tips, product marketing and PR help, introductions to great manufacturers, and help with fulfillment, shipping, and logistics.
Crowd Supply CEO Josh Lifton said that while his company’s closest competition is Kickstarter, there are “significant differences.”
“Kickstarter is nothing more than a facilitator for crowdfunding, and they make that very clear,” he said. “Kickstarter has also developed a reputation for products that never ship, and worse, a growing reputation for scams and flakes.”
Crowd Supply has launched more than 80 products supported by backers hailing from every state in the U.S. and 70 countries abroad. Total funding to date is $1.1 million.
