Actor LeVar Burton’s Kickstarter campaign to bring the nostalgic children’s learning show “Reading Rainbow” to more platforms and to thousands of classrooms for free closed last week, surpassing its goal of $5 million with total funding of over $5.4 million from more than 100,000 backers. That put Reading Rainbow‘s crowdfunding campaign in the top five most successful Kickstarter projects of all time.
The project received a big boost from “Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane who committed to donating $1 million. Burton also received additional support from several unexpected sources—the top four highest earning campaigns ever on the site: “Pebble,” “OUYA,” “Pono” and “Veronica Mars.” Each of the Kickstarter “All Stars” contributed a limited edition reward created specifically for the Reading Rainbow campaign. “This has been quite a journey for me. First, securing the rights to the brand and being in a position to determine the destiny of the brand is something I have wanted to do for a long time,†Burton told BlackEnterprise.com.
Related: LeVar Burton Talks Return of Reading Rainbow and Future Plans for the Brand
Originally, Burton had only announced plans to bring Reading Rainbow to the web, setting a fundraising goal of $1 million. Having hit the ambitious $5 million stretch mark, Burton’s company is now bringing Reading Rainbow to Android as well as the Xbox, PlayStation, Apple TV, and Roku. Some of the additional funding is also going toward giving schools free access to Reading Rainbow‘s website and apps. Burton plans to provide free access for a year to at least 7,500 classrooms in 2015.
Here are five of the most successful Crowdfunding campaigns to date:
No. 1: The Star Citizen Project
Funds Raised: $47 Million
The Star Citizen Project’s upcoming space trading and combat video game from Chris Roberts, designer of Wing Commander, is the largest crowd-funded project of any genre with over 470,000 backers. Between October 10th and November 19th 2012, the Star Citizen Project raised a whopping $4.1 million. Since its two initial Kickstarter campaigns closed May 3, 2013, Star Citizen received an additional $3 million through its website using IgnitionDeck. When it went on to pass $10 million in June 2013, Star Citizen became the highest raising crowd-funded project ever. Total funding has surpassed $47 million as of June 22, 2014. The game will continue to collect crowd-funded donations until its release.
No.2: The Pebble E-Paper Smartwatch
Funds Raised: $10.3 Million
The Pebble E-Paper Watch is a smartwatch developed by Pebble Technology Corporation, which was funded via Kickstarted and released in 2013. Pebble founder Eric Migicovsky was hoping to raise $100,000. Instead, his Kickstarter campaign, which ran from April to May of last year, generated more than $10 million from almost 69,000 backers. In fact, the Pebble smartwatch raised $10.3 million in 37 days on Kickstarter, making it the most successful product funded through that company up until then. Backers jumped at the chance to be one the first to own a Pebble watch. While some inves
tors were upset about not receiving the product in a timely fashion, the Pebble is now sold directly in retail stores. When Best Buy began selling Pebble smartwatches in July 2013, they sold out within five days. AT&T also sells the Pebble.
No. 3: The Ouya Video Game Console
Funds Raised: $8.5 Million
The Ouya is a microconsole running its own version of the Android operating system. The project was founded by Julie Uhrman in 2012. Development was funded via Kickstarter, raising $8.5 million and becoming the website’s second-highest-earning project in its history. Units started to ship to Kickstarter backers on March 28, 2013. The console was released to the general public on June 25, 2013, and features an exclusive Ouya store for applications and games designed specifically for the Ouya platform, of which the majority is casual games. The Ouya is classified as part of the eight generation of video game consoles and as such is a rival competing against PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Wii.
No. 4: Pono Music Player
Funds Raised: $6.2 Million
Music legend Neil Young developed a music player that promises higher-quality sound than any of its competitors. The crowdfunding campaign for Young’s Pono Music is the third-biggest Kickstarter project in the history of the site, raising more than $6.2 million in 30 days from a little over 18,000 backers. The campaign’s goal of $800,000 was blown away less than 24 hours after it launched in March 2013. Pono is a proposed online music download-service and dedicated music player. The PonoPlayer, which will come with 128GB of storage, reportedly will sell for $399. By comparison, the 64GB iPod touch sells for the same price, and the iPod classic, with 160GB of storage, sells for $249. The player is scheduled to be delivered to crowdfunding backers this October.
No. 5: The Veronica Mars Movie Project at $5.7 Million
Following the cancellation of the popular teen sleuth television series Veronica Mars, creator Rob Thomas and the show’s star Kristen Bell put together Crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter to produce a movie adaptation. The Veronica Mars Project was launched on March 13, 2013 with a fundraising goal of $2 million. In the first day of the campaign, it broke the record as the fastest project to reach first $1 million, and then $2 million. The campaign ended on April 13, 2013 at $5.7 million in total funding, with over 90,000 donors contributing to the film. It became an iconic crowdfunding project as the entire film industry took note of the incredible success. Â Even filmmaker Spike Lee reportedly decided to launch his Crowdfunding campaign (raising $1.4 million from 6,421 backers) after hearing news of the project. The Veronica Mars movie, which afterwards earned a greenlight from Warner Bros. Digital Distribution, recently was released on March 14th, opening theatrically and on video-on-demand.