inXile Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer and a studio of Xbox Game Studios based in Tustin, California. Specializing in role-playing video games, inXile was founded in 2002 by Interplay co-founder Brian Fargo. The studio produced the fantasy games The Bard's Tale and Hunted: The Demon's Forge, along with various games for Flash and iOS such as Fantastic Contraption in its first decade of development. In 2012, inXile released the post-apocalyptic game Wasteland 2, following a successful Kickstarter campaign. Following the game's critical success, the studio went on to raise a then-record US$4 million on Kickstarter to develop Torment: Tides of Numenera, a spiritual successor to Interplay's Planescape: Torment. inXile has since finished developing Wasteland 3.
Boho-chic is a style of fashion drawing on various bohemian and hippie influences, which, at its height in late 2005 was associated particularly with actress Sienna Miller, model Kate Moss in the United Kingdom and actress/businesswoman Mary-Kate Olsen in the United States. It has been seen since the early 1990s and, although appearing to wane from time to time, has repeatedly re-surfaced in varying guises. Many elements of boho-chic became popular in the late 1960s and some date back much further, being associated, for example, with pre-Raphaelite women of the mid-to-late 19th century.
Elderly Instruments is a musical instrument retailer in Lansing, Michigan, United States, with a reputation as a "megastore", a repair shop and a locus for folk music including bluegrass and "twang". Specializing in fretted instruments, including acoustic and electric guitars, banjos, mandolins, and ukuleles, Elderly maintains a selection of odd or rare instruments. Elderly is known as a premier repair shop for fretted instruments, as one of the larger vintage instrument dealers in the United States, and as a major dealer of Martin guitars in particular.
Julia Nunes is an American singer-songwriter from Fairport, New York. Her career has progressed online through her videos of pop songs on YouTube, in which she sings harmony with herself and plays acoustic instruments, primarily the ukulele, guitar, melodica, and piano.
Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, Kickstarter has received $6.6 billion in pledges from 21 million backers to fund 222,000 projects, such as films, music, stage shows, comics, journalism, video games, technology, publishing, and food-related projects.
Indiegogo is an American crowdfunding website founded in 2008 by Danae Ringelmann, Slava Rubin, and Eric Schell. Its headquarters are in San Francisco, California. The site is one of the first sites to offer crowd funding. Indiegogo allows people to solicit funds for an idea, charity, or start-up business. Indiegogo charges a 5% fee on contributions. This charge is in addition to Stripe credit card processing charges of 3% + $0.30 per transaction. Fifteen million people visit the site each month.
Collings Guitars is an Austin, Texas based stringed instrument manufacturer. The company was founded in 1973 by Bill Collings. In 2008 it was called "one of the most recognized and respected names amongst aficionados of modern acoustic instruments". Their acoustic guitars have been highly regarded for decades. In addition to acoustic guitars they also make electric guitars, archtop guitars, mandolins, and ukuleles.
Video game development has typically been funded by large publishing companies or are alternatively paid for mostly by the developers themselves as independent titles. Other funding may come from government incentives or from private funding.
FundRazr is a free crowdfunding and online fundraising platform released in 2009. FundRazr operates internationally in 35+ counties with the largest markets being United States, Canada, United Kingdom and Australia. It allows users to run a wide-range of crowdfunding campaigns by creating fundraising pages and sharing it via social media, messaging apps, email and more to raise money for over 100 types of causes such as nonprofit, medical care, education, community help, poverty alleviation, arts, memorials, and animal rescue causes. FundRazr also works with more than 4000 nonprofits, charities and social enterprises with an advanced fundraising toolset for free. The digital fundraising platform provides 8 different campaign types. They include microproject fundraising, peer-to-peer campaigns, wishlist campaigns, recurring donations, branded sponsorship campaigns, DIY projects, sweepstake campaigns, and storefront campaigns.
Founded in 2012, Tilt was a crowdfunding company that allowed for groups and communities to collect, fundraise, or pool money online. James Beshara and Khaled Hussein launched the platform under the name Crowdtilt in February 2012 out of Y Combinator.
The crowdfunding exemption movement in the U.S. is the effort to exempt relatively small investment offerings, sold to the general public in small blocks, from the registration and compliance requirements demanded of large public companies. Inspired by the growth of non-investment crowdfunding, advocates see such exemptions as a way to spur innovation, economic activity, and small-business job creation, but opponents see such changes as invitations to fraud that will target unsophisticated investors. The movement has seen success with the passage of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, which went into effect in 2016, and a growing number of state-level exemptions.
One Spark was an annual crowdfunding festival held in Downtown Jacksonville, Florida, United States. In the event, "creators" displayed projects in various categories and crowdfunded from attendees. The event also offered opportunities for private investment in projects as well as speakers, music, and entertainment. The event launched in 2013.
Jamstik is a brand of portable, app-connected (MIDI) guitars made by Zivix—a music technology company based in Minneapolis, MN. Jamstik is made in the United States—designed in Minneapolis and manufactured by a South Dakota-based contract manufacturer.
Seed&Spark is a film-centric crowdfunding and SVOD platform launched in 2012.
Blackbird Guitars is a musical instrument company that manufactures acoustic guitars and ukuleles from composite materials, including carbon fiber and ekoa, a flax linen reinforcement fabric in a bio-epoxy matrix. The company has made contributions to both the field of luthiery and the field of composite design, notably with the composite all-hollow unibody instrument design used on all Blackbird models, as well as the development and use of Ekoa in the construction of fretted instruments.
Fig is a crowdfunding platform for video games. It launched in August 2015. Unlike traditional crowdfunding approaches like Kickstarter, where individuals can back a project to receive rewards, Fig uses a mixed model that includes individual backing and the opportunity for uncredited investors to invest as to obtain a share of future revenues for successful projects. At the end of 2017, four projects had begun generating returns, returning 245% to Fig investors.
@HopeMob is a not for profit crowdfunding site that raises money for direct aid to worthy causes. It was co-founded by Shaun King and Chad Kellough in 2012. People with specific needs apply to the site and are vetted. The vetting includes asking for references, conducting interviews, and researching on social media. Support is then given to approved projects to help them present a compelling case. Funds are then raised and used to purchase the specific items people need, such as a medical procedure; money is not given directly to those raising funds.
Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large number of people, in modern times typically via the Internet. Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing and alternative finance. In 2015, over US$34 billion were raised worldwide by crowdfunding.
Roadie tuners are automatic stringed instrument tuners created and developed by the music-tech startup, Band Industries, Inc. Roadie is compatible with stringed instruments that have a guitar machine head including electric, acoustic, classical and steel guitars, 6-7-12 string guitars, ukuleles, mandolins and banjos. There are currently three products in the Roadie family: Roadie Tuner, Roadie 2 and Roadie Bass. The latest version of the tuner, Roadie Bass, is designed to tune bass guitars as well as the instruments Roadie 2 can tune. Roadie 2 and Roadie Bass raised $502,931 on Kickstarter with 4,741 backers. Famous guitarists such as Spike Edney (Queen), Vinnie Moore (UFO), Elliot Easton, and Marcus Henderson have tried Roadie, as well as YouTubers and guitar teachers like Marty Schwartz, The Tone King and Scott's Bass Lessons. Roadie was reviewed by publications including Engadget, PC Magazine, TechCrunch and The Verge.
