Kickstarter has been many a startup's dream come true.
Offering the potential to truly take off, startups have flocked to the crowdfunding site in the hopes of sidestepping venture capitalists and turbo-charging their projects.
So who are the biggest Kickstarter winners, and what are they up to now?
Kickstarter breaks its funding projects down into 13 categories such as design, games, photography, and technology to name a few.
So we compiled a list of the highest funded projects from each category, telling a bit about what they are, how successful they were, and what they've been up to since taking the coveted No. 1 spot.
Design: Pebble E-Paper Smartwatch
Goal: $100,000 Raised: $10,266,845
The Pebble smartwatch is currently the most funded project on Kickstarter. Once you pair your Pebble to your iPhone or Android phone via Bluetooth, you can receive text messages and phone call notifications. The world's first widely successful smartwatch, Pebble recently announced that Best Buy will now sell the smartwatch in its stores for $150. You can pick one up today.
Technology: The Form 1 3D Printer
Goal: $100,000 Raised: $2,945,885
The Form 1 is one of the first 'affordable' high-resolution 3D printers out there, though the $3,299 price tag doesn't exactly target the casual enthusiast. But for labs, schools, and designers, the Form 1 offers a stereolithography machine capable of crafting detailed work.
Formlabs is currently letting Kickstarter backers redeem their Form 1, while new customers can pre-order a printer via their website, with an expected shipping date of October.
Publishing: Planet Money T-Shirt
Goal: $50,000 Raised: $590,807
A collaboration between NPR and This American Life, Planet Money set out to document the journey of a t-shirt, from inception to production. Naturally, they decided to fund the project with the actual t-shirts they'll be producing from scratch, offering people the chance to own a cool shirt while helping out some investigative reporting.
With the project's crowdfunding wrapping up in May, the team is hard at work figuring out the manufacturing process so that the shirts will arrive on time, sometime in September.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider