Back in July, crowdfunding site Kickstarter told everyone that they would soon open up in the UK, allowing the people in the region to launch projects on the site. Earlier this month, Kickstarter set October 31st as the official launch day for UK-based projects. Well, check your calendars. Kickstarter is now open for business in the UK.
There are plenty of just-launched projects from the UK, including places like London, Belfast, Liverpool, Leeds, Edinburgh, and Cardiff. Kickstarter gave UK residents the option to start building their products about three weeks ago.
If you remember, Kickstarter added a streamlined international shipping option for both U.S. and U.K. projects earlier this month. They also explained that projects from each location will work pretty much the same, with one little change: payments.
“The mechanics of Kickstarter (all-or-nothing funding, rewards, etc.) are identical for US and UK projects. When pledging, however, backers of UK projects will enter their payment information directly on Kickstarter rather than through Amazon Payments. All pledges will be processed securely through a third-party payments processor,” they said.
And the UK may not be the only expansion we see. In an interview with the BBC, Kickstarter co-founder Yancey Strickler said that the company was definitely looking at other countries.
“The request to expand internationally has long been one of our most requested features,” he said. “We certainly are interested. We’re going to see how the UK launch goes and figure out the next moves from there. There’s a lot of places that will be interesting.”
Stay tuned.