Kickstarter rival Backerkit exits beta, now available in 32 countries

Backerkit’s crowdfunding platform is exiting beta and opening up to creators of all stripes. It was announced Tuesday at the very end of the month. Gloomhaven Grand Festival campaign — perhaps its most high-profile, successful project yet — which runs through Wednesday.

“We believe in the transformative power of crowdfunding, and its capacity to turn the creative process into a collective effort,” said Backerkit CEO Maxwell Salzberg in a news release. “We are excited that backers can play a crucial role in providing feedback, building communities, and ultimately helping people create strong, resilient businesses of all sizes.”

Backerkit is a trusted platform for managing crowdfunding campaigns. It handles late pledges and shipping as well as organizing logistics. It announced in June 2022 that it was launching its own platform to compete with the leading crowdfunding site, Kickstarter. This process was rolled out as a beta last year, and then into 2023. A handful of partner projects were carefully selected. Reprints of Dark Tower Return ($2 million), Spirit Island: Nature Incarnate Nearly $1,2 million) Adventures in the Cypher System (more than 7111,000). Since the beta phase of the Backerkit platform is over, any Backerkit user in the 32 countries that Backerkit operates can now create their own campaign.

Backerkit’s biggest success to date is Backerkit. Gloomhaven Grand Festival is a campaign which includes an innovative new tabletop RPG, over 600 miniatures and a revised edition of the hit boardgame. It has already raised over $4 million through Backerkit at the time this article was published. For as much as it costs, the Gloomhaven Grand Festival has pulled, it’s still nowhere near the haul that FrosthavenThe direct sequel to GloomhavenEarned on Kickstarter by 2020 This project raised nearly $13million, which makes it the 4th most funded Kickstarter campaign ever.

That delta could be because of Backerkit’s smaller, more nascent community due to its shorter history as a dedicated crowdfunding platform. The overall softening of the market for crowdfunding over the last 3 years could explain the difference. Kickstarter’s revenues from tabletop campaigns, traditionally about a third of its overall income from crowdfunding, surged in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic only to taper off in 2021. The company lost $33 million in 2022 (12.4%). This was the first time since 2014 that this category had seen a decline.

Kickstarter announced unilaterally that they would be switching to the blockchain technology by December 2021. The decision angered many creators, leading to a change in the company’s executive leadership and a slow-moving, community-led pivot away from blockchain tech.

Gamefound has also made gains in the battle against New York’s crowdfunding giant. While Kickstarter, Backerkit, and other crowdfunding sites allow for all types of campaigns, such as those for music, movies, or comics, this European firm only allows campaigns for tabletop gaming. Last year’s revenues increased by over 45%, to $28,3 millions. However, they were still below the company’s own expectations.

The tabletop gaming industry has benefited greatly from this format, and it will be the first time that 2023 brings tabletop creators the option to choose between crowdfunding options. For its part, Backerkit clearly hopes to differentiate itself by catering to user demands — and the perceived weaknesses of its competitors.

“We’ve watched creators work around gaps in existing platforms,” CEO Salzberg said in the news release. “It’s been a guide for us on our build. We’ve also been careful to build a platform that encourages, and often even insists, that creators involve backers in the creative process.”