Backerkit launches its own crowdfunding platform with nearly 40 planned projects
The newest competitor in the crowdfunding scene will open more broadly in 2023 with a Gloomhaven exclusive.
The already burgeoning crowdfunding scene just got a little busier, as long standing support service Backerkit has announced its own dedicated platform for hosting projects. Crowdfunding by Backerkit is currently open in a beta period and plans to fully launch sometime in 2023.
The company revealed the surprise via Twitter on June 14th, linking to a site with five currently active projects and a list of planned campaigns from over 30 more companies from inside the tabletop industry and without. Both Wehrlegig Games and Leder Games are listed alongside Mothership tabletop RPG’s creator Tuesday Knight Games and Return to Dark Tower’s Restoration Games as future creators.
“We’re building Crowdfunding by BackerKit to give creators more space and opportunity to collaborate with backers, build closer relationships, and have more successful projects,” the website reads.”
Backerkit built its reputation as one of the easiest and most comprehensive crowdfunding toolkits available, bundling pledge management, fulfilment tools, pre-ordering and launch pages together. It initially sprung out of a lack of support from Kickstarter as the number of projects grew alongside their complexity and ballooning amount of revenue.
According to Backerkit, their own proprietary crowdfunding site does not mean that those tools won’t still be available to creators who choose to stay with Kickstarter or any other platform. The additional platform seems to be simply another tool in the company’s belt, albeit one of the largest yet added. It also won’t focus solely on tabletop games but does boast a number of high profile artists and studios among the initially planned projects.
Among those is Cephalofair Games, Isaac Childres’ independent company and makers of the Gloomhaven board game series. Childres accompanied the Backerkit announcement with his own that a line of Gloomhaven-specific miniatures will be crowdfunding on the new platform in 2023. Over 500 miniatures will replace the standees in the base game, two-player Jaws of the Lion and all expansion content. The project will allow backers to pre-order copies from the second run of the upcoming sequel, Frosthaven - miniatures for this huge follow-up will also be available.
“Using BackerKit is the easiest part of a crowdfunding experience, because any time we have a problem or needed anything, they are on it, coming up with a solution,” Childres said in an email. “And if they could be the entire crowdfunding experience? Well, that seemed like an easy decision to make.”
The full list of planned and currently running projects is available on Backerkit’s launch page. Dicebreaker has reached out for more information and will update this story as we learn more.