Follow these Crowdfunding Numbers
In early 2012 I started researching all the biggest providers of crowdfunding services, and hadn’t even heard of some of the companies I researched. Life seemed to evolve around the single biggest player, Kickstarter, with others far behind. What I realized during my research, was the small players are going to stay small, while the major players are going to grow exponentially as crowdfunding matures. With crowdfunding holding such strong roots to “crowds,” it’s an obvious assumption.
One of the companies I discovered, GoFundMe - a Cinderella of the crowdfunding world if you will, has shown great strides in pulling away from the pack. In the past 6 months alone, they’ve tripled their revenue. Now they are a partner of ours - and rightfully so, because we only partner with winners - but their metrics speak for themselves.
When I first added GoFundMe to our research report their revenue definitely landed them in the top 3 crowdfunding providers category. That included revenue through December 2011. In June, they made a few of their metrics available to the public. These figures revealed the first time they raised $1 million in a single month was February 2012. By May 2012 they were raising $2M in a single month. What I don’t think GoFundMe anticipated was to be raising $3M each month by August which their CEO, Brad Damphousse, just revealed to me last week in a followup conversation.
Month-over-month, GoFundMe is continually seeing 20% growth. All this without outside investors. Recent press in Forbes & The Business Journals have highlighted the company’s success despite raising any capital. In a matter of four years, Damphousse turned GoFundMe into a $40 million dollar a year company.
So how is GoFundMe experiencing such growth? By making it real simple for anyone to start their own crowdfunding campaign. “You can literally start crowdfunding for your campaign in under a minute, but we recommend taking a moment to check for typos. ” says Damphousse with a smile.
If you’re curious where most of the funds come from, almost 20% is donated to the medical category.