VENTURE CAPITAL POST

Kickstarter, the popular online crowdfunding platform, has just banned a project for its failure to provide evidence of a working prototype. The project was for a laser-powered razor called Skarp which has raised over $4 million in crowdfunding since it was first announced.

Donation-based and rewards-based crowdfunding are the most popular ways for entrepreneurs to bring their startups and projects to life. Entrepreneur reports that 2015 is considered as "the year of crowdfunding" with all the significant growth and rapid changes in the market. In 2012, a total of $16.2 billion was raised by companies and individuals all over the world.

Crowdsourced fundraising site Kickstarter has dropped Amazon.com Inc as its global payments processor in favor of Stripe, the fast-growing startup used by Twitter Inc, Facebook Inc and Apple Inc.

San Francisco, US-based music app and player startup PonoMusic is now focusing on production after it pocketed $6.2 million in a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter which ended more than a week ago.

Houston, US-based virtual reality (VR) treadmill maker Virtuix Omni bagged $3 million in its seed funding round with Tekton Ventures and Maveron as lead investors to fund the commercial release of its product.

Seattle, US-based entrepreneur Liz Havlin is set to launch a crowdfunding campaign via Kickstarter to raise $30,000 to develop a 3D printer called the Legacy that uses recycled colored plastic as ink.

Belfast, Ireland-based home-brewing firm Cargo bagged £82,000 in funding from Invest North Ireland (NI) for the development and marketing of its smartphone-controlled beer-making robot Brewbot.

Munich, Germany-based smart headphones The Dash broke its $260,000 crowdfunding goal on the Kickstarter platform by reaching a total of more than $3 million for the whole campaign.

Santa Monica, US-based 3D print online marketplace SyncFab launched a $25,000 crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter to streamline specialty manufacturing in the US using the 3D printing technology.

Ohio, US-based 3D building company 3DKitBash launched a crowdfunding campaign via Kickstarter to raise $500 for a new 3D object files kit that lets users print skulls on their 3D printer.

Canadian music legend Neil Young launched a crowdfunding campaign via Kickstarter with a funding goal of $800,000 for his portable music player called Pono that enhances the quality of digitized music files.

San Francisco, US-based startup SeeSpace launched a $100,000 crowdfunding campaign via Kickstarter for InAIR, its new product that combines Internet and second screen functions.

London, UK-based keyring smartphone charger Popcord surpassed its £20,000 goal on Kickstarter and went past the £33,000 mark with five days left for its crowdfunding campaign.

Penzance, UK-based firm Acoustic Stream launched a $50,000 crowdfunding campaign via Kickstarter to develop a 4-in-1 device that allows guitarists to tune their guitar, and record, stream, and share their performances to the world.

Kickstarter will most likely surpass the $1 billion mark pledged for the crowdfunding projects launched on the site in the next few days, TechCrunch reported.