Canonical has been trumpeting the exciting news that it has broken a crowdfund record by raising more than $11 million for the Ubuntu Edge phone.

"This morning the Ubuntu Edge passed the $10,266,845 raised by the Pebble smartwatch to become the world’s biggest ever fixed crowdfunding campaign," Canonical wrote Friday on its Indiegogo campaign page. "Over 14,500 Ubuntu Edges have been pledged for—and there’s still just under a week left to add to that total."

The total is up to $11.5 million now, but with just two and a half days to go the project is more than $20 million short of its $32 million goal. Unless Canonical hits the goal, contributors will get their pledges back.

Canonical's "record" is actually short of the $15 million raised by the game Star Citizen. But whereas Canonical gave itself a fixed time period of 30 days, Star Citizen first raised more than $6 million on Kickstarter and on its own website, and then raised another $9 million on its website over the subsequent nine months.



Despite not coming close to the company's self-imposed goal, Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth told BBC, "The campaign has sparked a level of interest that has surprised even us." He said that "some large manufacturers had come 'out of the woodwork' to discuss the device with him," the BBC wrote.

Shuttleworth said Canonical would consider extending the length of the campaign if it made big gains, but those do not appear to be forthcoming. The crowdfund started out strong, but it quickly stagnated and has raised less than $3 million in the past 11 days.

Backers who wanted an Ubuntu Edge phone badly enough that they were willing to pledge $695 will certainly be disappointed if it never comes into existence. Still, other phones running Ubuntu are expected to hit the market early next year.