On 3D Printing

Tag Archives: crowdfunding

3D Printing Pen 3Doodler Raises $1.8M on Kickstarter from 20K Backers

February 26, 2013 News

Another 3D printing project has launched on crowdfunding site Kickstarter and blown away its funding goals.

3Doodler is a 3D printing pen that let’s you draw real objects in mid-air. Looking to raise $30,000 on Kickstarter, the project has already passed $1.8 million in funding from over 20,000 backers!

3Doodler is the world’s first and only 3D Printing Pen. Using ABS plastic (the material used by many 3D printers), 3Doodler draws in the air or on surfaces. It’s compact and easy to use, and requires no software or computers. You just plug it into a power socket and can start drawing anything within minutes.

Below is the video about the project. You still have 26 days to participate in their funding.

Top 3D Printing Headlines Last Week: Kickstarter Funded, Copyright Law

February 5, 2013 News

A roundup of the top news On 3D Printing brought you from January 29 to February 2.

Tuesday, January 29

RoBo 3D Printer Raises $500K on Kickstarter to Battle MakerBot

Saturday, February 2

RoBo 3D Printer Raises $500K on Kickstarter to Battle MakerBot

January 29, 2013 Misc

There’s a new Kickstarter champion in town: The RoBo 3D Printer. After setting up a Kickstarter campaign to raise $49,000, it looks likes the RoBo team will raise over $500K to build a a low-cost, open source, easy to use 3D printer.

What is RoBo 3D?

RoBo 3D is the ultimate 3D printer everyone has been waiting for. We combined the best minds from the open source community, the best hardware we believe can give the best prints, and our own ideas based on our experience working with 3D printers. The open-source design is made so people like us can go online and find all the documents that show the ins and outs of how to make a RoBo 3D. In true rep-rap fashion, RoBo 3D has been made so that it can print out its own parts. Once in your hands, print out another for a friend! Come experience it and together, lets create something great.

Who is RoBo 3D for?

Architects- print out model homes and buildings for clients. Change and print out again without hassle.

Designers- Have an idea that you want to bring to life? Print out your designs and see if they were everything you imagined. If not, change it and print out the next idea.

Hobbyists/DIY- Easily create your projects in the comfort of your own home.

Small Business owners- Manufacture your own products at the office!

Students- Senior engineering project coming up? Use RoBo 3D to proint the parts you need to get the job done done.

Home owners- Replace broken household items for next to nothing!

In their campaign, RoBo 3D provides a comparison matrix to the MakerBot. What jumps out the most is the price: $520 vs $2,199 for the MakerBot Replicator 2.

Below is their Kickstarter video. Congrats to the team for raising $500K!

Analyzing Funding Goals of 3D Printing Kickstarter Projects [Data]

May 4, 2012 Editorial

Why do some Kickstarter projects achieve their funding goals while others are unsuccessful?

The New York Times recently published an analysis of three years of Kickstarter projects.

Almost 50,000 projects have sought financing on Kickstarter since the site began on April 28, 2009. About half successfully reached their fund-raising goals.

We decided to run our own analysis of 3D printing Kickstarter projects. Here is what we found:

Of the 13 projects since October 2009, only 6 have successfully reached their funding goals, or 46%
The average funding goal of a successful project is $3,842 and the average funds raised is $11,039, or 287%
The average funding goal of an unsuccessful project is $16,874 and the average funds raised is $1,105, or 7%
The average number of backers for a successful project is 55 with each backer pledging $164
The average number of backers for an unsuccessful project is 21 with each backer pledging only $38
There was no geographic concentration of successful projects

Based on this analysis, we are seeing that unsuccessful projects are asking for too much money and also not finding enough individual backers to support their idea. Sometimes this is due to the production quality of the pitch, but overall it seems that crowdfunding backers are not ready to embrace 3D printing projects.

For example, PotteryPrint was an iPad app concept to teach kids about 3D printing. They raised $6,000 of their $12,000 funding goal. Another example on IndieGoGo is Anarkik3D, which has only raised $3,050 of its $120,000 funding goal with 55 days to go. Both of these projects have good ideas and great production quality, but have set targets above the average successful funding level of $3,842.

Below are some charts of our analysis and the raw data.