Darrell Etherington |  TechCrunch

Crowdfunding site Indiegogo shared some exclusive details regarding their past year with TechCrunch, and the stats essentially back up what Matt Burns said about 2012: In many ways, this was the year of crowdfunding. Campaigns raised more money in shorter periods, with fewer people involved in their creation, and more than half met their funding goal.

All told, campaigns launched in 2012 raised 20 percent more than they did on average in 2011, and ran for only 49 days. In 2011, the average campaign not only brought in less cash, but also ran for 60 days, or 22 percent longer. Among successful campaigns in 2012, the funding periods were even shorter: on average, projects that met their goal lasted for only 39 days. This decrease in the time required for a project to meet its goals, coupled with higher funding amounts, pretty clearly points to an increase in the overall comfort level and popularity of crowdfunding with the general population: more funders more eager to donate would definitely lead to this kind of result.

Crowdfunding also appears to have taken a more altruistic turn this past year, as Indiegogo found that 33 percent of the dollars contributed via its platform were given with no strings attached – meaning they either didn’t have a perk attached, or exceeded the amount required to obtain a perk from project creators. In 2011, only 23 percent of dollars gathered by Indiegogo fell into that category. Campaigns were more viral, with 14 percent seeing more referrals from just a single contributor than from the project creator (or creators) themselves, and those seeking funding were more likely to strike out on their own, since the average founding team was made up of just 1.7 people, vs. 2.2 in 2011. Crowdfunding also got more social, with each project getting an average of 42 more shares or Likes on Facebook than they received in the previous year.

Crowdfunding will definitely continue to be a space to watch in 2013, after posting significant gains in 2012. Equity-based crowdfunding in the U.S. may miss the 2013 mark and arrive instead in early 2014, but predictions still suggest a doubling of annual revenue across web-based crowdfunding platforms including Kickstarter, Indiegogo and more, to $6 billion worldwide.

Source:  here

Year in Review: Indiegogo’s 12 Top 12 Lists for 2012

Other Resources:
Top 12 Campaigns of 2012
Top 12 Pitch Videos of 2012
Top 12 Perks of 2012

Top 12 Insights of 2012 (Coming Soon!)

Top 12 Entrepreneurial Campaigns of 2012
Top 12 Creative Campaigns of 2012
Top 12 Cause-Related Campaigns of 2012
Top 12 Gadget Campaigns of 2012
Top 12 Film Campaigns of 2012
Top 12 Community Campaigns of 2012
Top 12 Music Campaigns of 2012
Top 12 Gaming Campaigns of 2012