In 2013 one of the most popular categories in the crowd funding realm was 3D printing. 3D printing can be found at the heart of many of the top funded boards across popular crowd sourcing websites. In the beginning, the biggest hurdle for 3D printing technology to overcome when it attempted to enter the commercial and at-home marketplace was cost. Even introductory 3D printers were prohibitively expensive for most hobbyists to truly enjoy. Over the past several years, crowd funding has proven to the ideal platform for the emergence of less expensive and more useful 3D printers.

Another initial problem was popularity. With so few consumers interested in 3D printing technology there wasn’t a lot of incentive for manufacturers to create low-cost, at-home solutions. In the past two years, the popularity of 3D printing has skyrocketed. It has proven to be a great solution for artist and hobbyists alike. If there is one thing crowd sourcing has proved is that popularity is no longer a problem for this technology. A quick look at the top performing 3D printer related crowd funding projects easily demonstrates this point.