Kickstarter Pledges Support For Stripe

Mike Moore,

Crowdfunding website drops Amazon Payments to make supporting projects quicker and easier

Crowdfunding site Kickstarter has announced it will be switching payment provider to US start-up Stripe in a bid to make backing projects easier than ever.

The site, which processed more than $529m last year globally (including $39m in the UK), will be moving from Amazon Payments to Stripe, which will allow backers to fund a project in just three clicks.

The move will not cause any rise in fees for users, and Kickstarter has already begun moving existing projects to the new service, saying that all new projects should support Stripe by next week.

The news means that both of the world’s leading crowdfunding sites now utilise Stripe, with Kickstarter, which helped fund the likes of the Pebble smartwatch and Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, joining its rival Indiegogo in supporting the service. In addition, Stripe can also boast several leading UK crowdfunding resources as customers, including Seedrs, Crowdcube, GoFundMe and GoGetFunding.

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The company says that moving to Stripe also makes it easier for project creators to access their funds, as users can now enter their bank details when drafting their project, a move Kickstarter says means the whole process will take just a matter of minutes instead of several days waiting for authorisation.

Kickstarter says the move was necessitated by Amazon Payments, which had helped process over $1bn of pledges since its launch, discontinuing the payments product used on the site.

“We took the opportunity to consider the best possible partner to process payments for creators and backers moving forward,” a company blog explaining the move said. “After careful consideration, we decided on Stripe. Stripe processes payments for Twitter and Facebook, and we’ve gotten to know their team and product well. We’re thrilled to partner with them.”

Formed six years ago by brothers Patrick and John Collison, Stripe has grown quickly during its lifetime. In December, the company raised $70m in its latest round of funding, which valued it at $3.5bn.

With offices in 14 countries, it clients include Rackspace, Foursquare, and ride-sharing service Lyft, and counts Sequoia Capital, General Catalyst Partners and Khosla Ventures among its main investors, and has also received backing by three of PayPal’s co-founders, including current Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk.

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