Canonical is still way off the pace with its Ubuntu Edge crowdfunding campaign – the firm needs to raise more than $20 million in six days to meet its ambitious $32 million target – but it’s still smashing records along the way.
The Indiegogo page has now accrued over $10.3 million in pledges, toppling the Pebble smartwatch as the highest every fixed crowdfunding campaign. The United States is the highest contributing nation, followed by the United Kingdom – where Canonical also has offices – and Germany.
The company needs $32 million to put the Ubuntu Edge smartphone into production though. It’s still possible to raise that amount – who knows what will happen in the next week – but unless the rate of pledges increases rather significantly, Canonical will miss its goal by some margin.
The handset itself is a novel prospect, packing in 128GB of internal storage, dual-LTE receivers, 4GB of RAM and the ability to dual-boot both Android and Ubuntu OS. The device, if successfully funded, will be a limited run though. So if you’re still interested in the handset, there’s never been a better time to get behind the campaign.
It’s worth noting that Cloud Imperium Games has raised a dizzying $15 million for its space exploration MMO Star Citizen – higher than Canonical. That amount isn’t quite the same though as that achieved by the Pebble and Ubuntu Edge though, as the project doesn’t have a fixed goal – the developer raised $2.1 million on Kickstarter, before launching an open-ended campaign on its official site.
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