Indiegogo was founded in 2008 by Danae Ringelmann, Slava Rubin and Eric Schell.
The founders developed the platform to let people raise money online for creative, entrepreneurial and charitable projects. Indiegogo initially focused on film and later expanded to technology products, inventions and other campaigns.
Its model helped popularize reward-based crowdfunding, in which supporters contribute money in exchange for benefits such as early access, merchandise or project rewards. This differs from equity crowdfunding, where backers receive an ownership stake.
Kickstarter is the most common mix-up because it is another prominent reward-based crowdfunding platform. Kickstarter was founded by Perry Chen, Yancey Strickler and Charles Adler, while Indiegogo’s founding team was Ringelmann, Rubin and Schell.