Science by the Masses : Is crowdfunding the future for biotech start-ups?

Funding any business venture can be daunting, especially for entrepreneurs, who must sometimes raise millions of dollars from private investors to launch a new idea. Eric Migicovsky, CEO of Pebble Technology, found a way around this problem. When Migicovsky was unable to raise money from investors for his Pebble e-watch, a device with the ability to connect to Android and iPhone smartphones using Bluetooth technology, he took the idea to the crowdfunding Web site Kickstarter. By the time his company had closed its campaign, 70,000 people had contributed a whopping US$10.2 million to see his smartwatch realized. Migicovsky is not the only one to enjoy wild success by turning to the masses for money. At the time of this writing, the makers of the Star Citizen video game surpassed Pebble Technology by raising more than US$2.1 million in funding on Kickstarter and more than US$15 million on its own site using the WordPress crowdfunding plug-in called IgnitionDeck. The game is planned for release in ?December 2014.