We at The Spoon often head over to Kickstarter to see what kinds of crazy/cool kitchen tech products entrepreneurs are looking to crowdfund.
But as we’ve seen (repeatedly), raising tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars via Kickstarter does not mean that a product will actually make it to market.
Given that it’s the end of the year, we thought we’d go back and take a look at the crowdfunding campaigns we wrote about in 2019 to see if they got fully funded, and more importantly, if if they actually shipped their product. (All funds raised below are from Kickstarter only. More could have been raised on other platforms.)
Fromaggio connected countertop cheese maker – Funded ($416,409 ), though it looks like the company has run into development issues, so who knows if it will make its promised ship date of May 2020.
Rite Press no mess French Press – Raised $1,086,974 in 2018. The company asked for more money from backers this year and still hasn’t shipped the product to everyone yet.
Mosi Tea mobile tea brewer – Funded ($458,200). Was supposed to ship in Dec., but that has slipped.
uKeg Nitro cold brew coffee maker – Raised $643,498 and shipped!
Verdeat home hydroponic garden system – Funded ($74,124), supposed to ship in Feb. 2020.
Travel Decanter cocktail tumblers – Raised $377,071 and shipped! But there seem to be some issues with the product leaking for the people who got one.
Stasis Glycol homebrew chiller – Funded ($184,369), though production issues have delayed shipping past the original November estimation.
Rise Mrkt plastic-free grocer – Funding unsuccessful.
Chopbox cutting board + scale + timer – Funded ($1,794,958). Shipping delayed from Dec. to Jan.
Ark reusable food containers – Funding unsuccessful.
The Mellow Duo connected sous vide appliance – Funded ($185,799 with 11 days to go in the campaign). Supposed to ship October 2020.
Heatbox heated lunchbox – Funded ($80,743 with two days to go in the campaign). Ships July 2020.
Neoven high-tech heated lunch box with expansion modules – Funded ($95,730 with six days to go in the campaign). Ships July 2020.
Ode coffee grinder – Funded ($609,094 with 55 days to go in the campaign). Ships August 2020.
iGulu home beer making machine – Raised $701,416 and shut down without delivering.
GoSun Cutlery that’s reusable and the size of a credit card – Funded ($310,283). Ships Feb. 2020
Chime – Funded. Shipping Jan. 2020.
From this list it seems like one of the best ways to get your project crowdfunded is to make something for a drink. Coffee, tea, beer, booze. Find a need (or make one up) and people will flock to fund you.
What’s interesting/sad is that the two projects on this list that didn’t get funding this year were around waste reduction. People it seems weren’t ready to give up their plastic for grocery shopping at Rise MRKT and didn’t want reusable lunch containers from Ark (an idea we were big fans of here at The Spoon).
With big crowdfunding successes like the Ode coffee grinder, Chopbox and GoSun’s cutlery, Kickstarter will continue to be a siren song for would be entrepreneurs everywhere. Hopefully they can learn from the wreckage of those that didn’t deliver this year to make delivery of crowdfunded projects more consistent in 2020.
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