The Crowdfunding Centre has released statistics that indicate that crowdfunding has increased the UK economy over £9 million including:
- Rewards crowdfunding raised £4.3m, at a rate of more than £3,800 per hour during March, compared with £1,700 per hour in January and February.
- Equity crowdfunding raised more than £5m, in excess of £3m of that in March alone
- A new crowdfunding project is created every three minutes. An average of 520 new projects are being created every day.
These preliminary figures from The Crowd Data Center – a new service from The Crowdfunding Centre which will be previewed to the crowdfunding community worldwide on Saturday, Global Crowdfunding Day – show crowdfunding is booming, with both equity and rewards showing very strong increases month-on-month.
Barry James, founder of both The Crowdfunding Centre and The Crowd Data Center, predicts that world crowdfunding potential in 2014 could actually be more than double the predictions made earlier this year in the Berkeley/Cambridge/NESTA report.
Barry James said:
“While the data solidly supports the ‘Rise of Future Finance Report’ projection of $1.6bn this year we are seeing a major upswing in March which, if it continues, could more than double this. This assumes we remain roughly on-track with UK equity Crowdfunding. However progress in the USA remains sluggish due to the complexity and restrictions there.”
“Worldwide we saw increases across the board in the first quarter and in the UK especially we saw big increases month on month through the quarter indicating that there is a major upswing in activity, probably due to growing awareness – and there’s a long way to go. This journey is only just beginning.”
UK rewards crowdfunding growth has seen a rise of more than 160% (by funds raised) between February and March (and more than 90% on the previous month – although seasonal trends mean it is to be expected that January will be a quiet month) indicating strong and sustained growth in UK
Equity crowdfunding in the UK has also had a very good quarter – especially March – and contributes significantly to the UK figures, overtaking rewards crowdfunding for the first time in February and consolidating this in March.
Global crowdfunding continues apace with more than 500 new projects per day and up to 22,000 projects open and funding at any one time. The total is likely to be higher still and will climb as the smaller platforms are added into the mix.
The Crowd Data Center is tracking all these projects hourly, and now knows the top platforms for each of almost 40 categories – the Center will be launching ‘Top of the Crowdfunding Pops’, charting the top trending projects on a weekly and daily basis.
Mark Thackeray, Moderator of the UK Crowdfunding Group, welcomed the new service from The Crowd Data Center.
“The data from The Crowd Data Center is shedding a whole new light on Crowdfunding in the UK and Worldwide providing the evidence based insights we need to make good decisions and move us all forward,” said Barry James.
“What’s unfolding is as important as it is exciting for everyone in Crowdfunding and the economy as a whole.”
Rodrigo Davies, Researcher at MIT’s Center for Civic Media, added:
“We’ve known for a few years that crowdfunding can be a fantastic way to get an innovative new project off the ground. Thousands of people every day are taking up the opportunity to participate in projects, investing their resources and social networks to help others succeed.
“As crowdfunding starts to mature, we need more reliable data to be able to understand what’s happening on the ground. This dataset is an important first step in building benchmarks that users, researchers and the industry can rely on.”
Ruth Hedges, founder of Global Crowdfunding Day, said: “The fact that this data is now available in real time, as opposed to the annual surveys we are used to, is fantastic.
“It will encourage new people to come into this industry when they see the value and results in the data being captured. It’s a very impactful, powerful way to incentivise more people to crowdfund.”