San Diego, US-based entrepreneur Ian Sells nabbed $50,000 on a Kickstarter campaign to fund the first batch of StrongVolt, a solar charger he created for smart devices.

New research from Capital Crowdfund Advisors showed that entrepreneurs who crowdfunded did very well, getting an increase in sales, among others, Forbes Contributor Cheryl Conner reported.

San Francisco, California-based firm HiddenRadio launched another crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter to add new features to HiddenRadio 2, its second model of impressively-designed $119 Bluetooth speaker.

Bristol, UK-based frozen yogurt seller AngelBerry turned to crowdfunding to raise at least £150,000 via Crowdcube to fund its plan to expand to 100 stores worldwide by 2016.

The Jamaican bobsled team, which last competed in the Winter Olympics in 2002, is using crowdfunding to raise funds that will allow them to compete in this year's Winter Olympics, ABC News reported.

Strapped for cash, schools in Houston, Texas are slowly turning to crowdfunding sites like donorschoose.org to get needed funding for their supplies and equipment, the Associated Press reported.

In a bid to bring home the $20 million prize money in the Google Lunar X Prize competition, Penn State launched a crowdfunding campaign on Rockethub to raise $400,000 by February to build its own moon rover prototype.

Los Angeles, US-based startup BEZALEL launched a crowdfunding campaign via Kickstarter to raise $35,000 for the development a portable wireless charger for smart devices called ARK.

Tel Aviv, Israel-based startup PowerUp Toys raised over $1 million via crowdfunding platform Kickstarter for a smartphone-controlled paperplane, with still eight days to go for the campaign.

A Kickstarter campaign allowed chip startup Adapteva to bridge the gap between its Series A and Series B rounds and prove its market, a Gigaom report said.