This article was published on November 20, 2014

Jolla’s tablet smashes the $1m crowdfunding barrier in less than 48 hours


Jolla’s tablet smashes the $1m crowdfunding barrier in less than 48 hours

Jolla has smashed the $1 million mark for its new Sailfish OS tablet, which is quite a remarkable feat given the crowdfunding campaign kicked off less than 48 hours ago.

Founded by a group of ex-Nokia employees who wanted to give MeeGo a second chance, Jolla was the first smartphone to offer a fresh take on the forgotten platform, which is called Sailfish OS. The Jolla smartphone went on sale across Europe last December via a dedicated online store on Jolla’s website.

Now Jolla is looking to add a tablet to its arsenal too, and what better way to fund the venture via the bank of Joe Public?

It’s not the first established tech firm to flirt with crowdfunding though. Last August, Ubuntu’s attempt to raise north of $32 million through Indiegogo to build a next-generation smartphone failed, though it still garnered a cool $13 million in the process.

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Earlier this month, Hour of Code set a new Indiegogo crowdfunding record when it sailed past $3 million, though it has still to meet its final target of $5 million Either way, the campaign has succeeded as it’s on a ‘flexible funding’ set-up, meaning all cash raised will be kept.

The way things are going for Jolla – with three weeks still to go until the campaign closes – it could be on course to beat all kinds of crowdfunding records. Though Kickstarter has seen a couple of projects that raised more than $10 million, including a cooler that secured $13 million.

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