Over $10 million has now been pledged to the Ubuntu Edge crowd-funding campaign on IndieGoGo.
The figure, some $22 million short of Canonical’s required $32 million goal, is made up by contributions from over 21,000 backers.
If the Edge raises another $200,000 before the campaign ends next week then the Edge will break records for the most amount of money pledged to a crowd-funding project – a title currently held by the Pebble Smartwatch.
In a poll we conducted over the weekend asking readers whether they felt the full $32 million would be raised by the deadline nearly 70% said they didn’t think it would.
‘Thanked’
Earlier this week Mark Shuttleworth thanked existing backers for helping to generate an ‘incredible’ response to the campaign and that he wasn’t ready to ‘give up’ while the $32m goal remain ‘achievable’.
If funded the Ubuntu Edge high-end “super-phone” would be a test-bed for new technologies rarely used in consumer mobiles, combined with a ‘convergence’ feature that would allow the phone to function as a PC when hooked up to a monitor.
Canonical’s recent price drop on the cost of the Edge seems to have helped lift the fortunes of the campaign from its glacial slumber of the last week or so.
‘30% Stat’
Three weeks into its 30 day run the Edge has so far managed to accrue over 30% of its total goal.
A popular statistic from Kickstarter, a rival crowd-funding site to IndieGoGo, says that 90% of projects that pass 30% go on to receive full 100% funding.
That stat doesn’t, of course, take into account a project seeking funding on such a huge scale as the Edge, or the fact that it only has 8 days left in which to do it.
But there is a ‘can’ in Canonical; If anyone can stir its supporters into helping them reach it, it’s them.