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Kickstarter campaigns that raised millions: 10 gadgets, games, books and animation

These 10 Kickstarter campaigns that raised millions, from Brandon Sanderson's secret novels to the Pebble smartwatch, show how backers funded gadgets, games, books and animation

A smartwatch held Kickstarter's funding record until a novelist took it in 2022 with books no reader had seen. The original Pebble E-Paper Watch raised about $10.3 million in 2012, a record at the time. Pebble Technology returned in 2015 with Pebble Time, which raised more than $20 million. That record stood until Brandon Sanderson's Surprise! Four Secret Novels campaign in 2022. Sanderson asked backers to pay for four novels he had not announced. The campaign raised more than $41 million from more than 180,000 backers and set the Kickstarter funding record.

The record's move from a gadget to a stack of books shows the range of projects that draw large sums. Kickstarter campaigns that raised millions span consumer hardware, tabletop games, publishing and animation. On the hardware side, Ouya was a game console built on Android. It asked for $950,000 and raised about $8.6 million in 2012. Ryan Grepper's Coolest Cooler built a blender, a Bluetooth speaker and other features into a cooler. It set a $50,000 goal in 2014 and raised about $13.3 million.

Pebble came back once more in 2016 with a campaign for the Pebble 2 and Time 2, which raised about $12.8 million. Fitbit acquired Pebble's assets in December of that year.

Tabletop games make up three more campaigns. Frosthaven, the Gloomhaven sequel from Isaac Childres and Cephalofair Games, raised roughly $13 million in 2020. Kingdom Death: Monster 1.5, a miniatures game, raised about $12.4 million in 2017. Exploding Kittens, a card game from Elan Lee, Matthew Inman of The Oatmeal and Shane Small, raised about $8.8 million in 2015. It drew a very large base of backers.

Animation has a place too. Critical Role raised about $11.4 million in 2019 for The Legend of Vox Machina, an animated special. A Prime Video series followed in 2022.

The 10 campaigns below are a selection of high-funding projects, not an official ranking or a complete list. Kickstarter's all-time totals can change as new campaigns close, and the figures here are approximate. Each slide covers one campaign: what it offered, who made it and how much backers pledged.

Brandon Sanderson's four........

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