Kickstarter UK Launches, Pledges To Begin 31 October

Crowdsourcing funding platform Kickstarter UK has opened for business with a view to launching projects at the end of the month.  From today, people in the UK can start their projects by clicking the ‘Start a New Project’ button on the start page and select the UK as their country.

On 31 October, Kickstarter will email users letting them know that they can launch their projects whenever they are ready. The three week gap is apparently to give everyone enough time to build and tweak their projects

The website launched in the US in April 2009 and claims that more than $350 million (£218m) has been pledged by more than 2.5 million people, funding more than 30,000 projects. It allows creative projects in a number of fields, including art, dance, fashion, film, games, music, photography, publishing, technology and theatre.

Kickstarter UK Launch

“In July we tweeted that Kickstarter would open up to UK-based projects for the first time this autumn. Today we’re very excited to announce that that day has finally arrived,” said Kickstarter. “We’re really excited! This is the product of months of work by our team, and we want to thank them for their hard work. Thanks as well to all the UK creators who have patiently waited for this day. We can’t wait to start backing your projects. Thanks so much!” [Some enthusiasm edited out here – Editor]

There will not be a UK-specific version of the site and projects will be listed alongside all others on the platform. Projects will be listed in pounds sterling, but people from outside the UK can still pledge and will be shown the approximate conversion into US dollars.

Creators can now also request that international backers add an additional amount to cover the cost of overseas shipping or even limit certain rewards to domestic backers due to the difficulties involved with international shipping.

Successful projects will be charged a 5 percent fee, but unsuccessful ones will not be charged. Kickstarter will be confident of making money however as it says that 44 percent of all projects submitted so far have been successful.

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