Report: In 2024, Over $5 Million Was Pledged To Animation Projects On Kickstarter
Kickstarter has released a data report about projects that used its crowdfunding platform in 2024.
The company reports that over $5 million was pledged to animated projects in 2024. Crowdfunding has become an increasingly important resource for independent animated short and series funding, especially in the United States where state funding for the arts is virtually nonexistent.
The report, which can be downloaded at their website, includes some useful data on the success of animation and game projects using the platform.
Here are some of the relevant stats from the report:
- 35,512 total projects used Kickstarter in 2024.
- A total of $706.4 million was pledged on the platform last year.
- The top categories that grew the most were theater, journalism, and publishing.
- Over $270 million was pledged to game projects, with $220 million of that amount going to tabletop games.
- $46.5 million was pledged to comic projects.
- 24% of all successful film campaigns were short films.
- The most pledges to the film category came from backers in New York City, Sna Francisco, Los Angeles, London, and Chicago.
- Over $5 million was pledged to animation projects. Animation had the second-highest total dollars pledged among the film categories, behind documentaries.
- The top-funded animation project in 2024 was “Animating Cradle” based on Will Wight’s bestselling fantasy novel series. The project raised $1.27 million from 8,224 backers, averaging $155 per backer.
Cartoon Brew’s Take: Any data is useful, but this report lacks the granularity that would make it useful to filmmakers who are considering crowdfunding an animation project. For example, how many animation projects were funded through the platform last year? What was the median amount raised for animation? What was the difference between amounts raised for one-off shorts and animated series? This is the kind of data that could help someone decide if crowdfunding is a viable option for a project. And while Kickstarter included the number of comic projects that were launched and the amount that were successfully funded, they did not include similar data for the animation category.
Further, while Kickstarter is touting the success of Will Wight’s Cradle Kickstarter, it should be pointed out that this single campaign amounts to 25% of all the money that people contributed to animation projects in 2024. One-quarter of an entire category’s funding going to a single project should be concerning, not celebrated.
And finally, what accounts for the wild disparity between comic projects ($46.5m pledged), which are 10x more popular with backers than animation ($5m)?
Besides Kickstarter, there are plenty of other ways of crowdfunding animation through platforms like Indiegogo and Patreon. If you have done this in the past, please comment about your experiences and what platforms have worked best for you.