CMON leaves Kickstarter and signs an exclusive deal with Gamefound

After a dizzying twelve years on Kickstarter, board game publisher CMON will bring its crowdfunding and pre-order activities exclusively to Gamefound. The founder of the Polish crowdfunding platform, Marcin Świerkot, told Polygon that he could not disclose the terms of the agreement. What is certain, however, is that this maneuver marks a huge change in the relationship between Kickstarter, long the leader in crowdfunding, and one of its biggest competitors.

“At CMON, we always strive to innovate and provide our customers with the best products and experiences,” said David Preti, COO of CMON, in a press release. “Gamefound has some excellent features that our fans have been asking for, and we think their platform is a great fit for us as we move into the future. We want the consumer experience to be as smooth as possible and Gamefound gives us the tools we need so we can focus on making great games.”

“Both parties are happy with (the agreement),” Gamefound’s Świerkot told Polygon in an email.

Gamefound exited beta in early 2022 and its growth was accelerated in part by a significant investment from Disney Lorcana publisher, Ravensburger. After falling short of its ambitious goals that year, the company rebounded and nearly doubled its crowdfunding revenue to more than $56 million by 2023. The revenue growth parallels Kickstarter’s own tabletop revenue decline, which reportedly fell by $43.8 million over the same two-year period.

Meanwhile, San Francisco-based BackerKit recently launched its own crowdfunding company, which exited beta in July 2023. Although the company has yet to record a full year of crowdfunding revenue, it has grown largely by courting disgruntled Kickstarter users. High-profile converts include: Gloomhaven And Frosthaven publisher Cephalofair Games, whose multi-title project is called Gloomhaven: Grand Festival raised over $5 million with Backerkit.

CMON’s sheer number of crowdfunding projects cannot be overstated. Since 2012, it has run nearly 60 successful campaigns on Kickstarter alone, earning an average of over $1.9 million per campaign. The company has raised an impressive $108,628,027 on Kickstarter, or more than 5.4% of the Brooklyn-based company’s cumulative revenue from tabletop crowdfunding over the past twelve years.

CMON’s latest campaign, currently on Gamefound, is for A song of ice and fire: tactics, a miniature skirmish game featuring characters from George RR Martin’s novels. It has made over $860,000 so far and has less than a week to go. Delivery is expected in February 2025.