Since its inception in 2009, Kickstarter has been a place to fund your next business idea.

On Tuesday, the company announced it is opening up the service and offering new features, including an in-house marketing team to help users maximize the money they raise and an option to keep the door open to more backers, even after a campaign. Ends.

“Here's what we know: It takes more than money to bring an idea to life,” Kickstarter CEO Everette Taylor said Tuesday. proclamation. “You need solid marketing, to reach and grow your audience, a good grasp of fulfillment logistics, constant communication with your supporters and reliable connections with distributors and manufacturers.”

^{Everette Taylor, CEO of Kickstarter. Photo by Arturo Holmes/Getty Images}

A high-impact feature, Late Pledges, allows creators to receive more funding, even after a campaign has officially ended.

Kickstarter's previous model didn't allow campaigns to last forever, so companies they were moving for competitors like Indiegogo to continue projects.

Kickstarter began testing the feature last month and claimed it helped one user raise 35% more than his initial fundraising goal in two weeks.

Late Pledges are available to all Kickstarter creators globally as of Tuesday.

Connected: Entering the Kickstarter office

Another improvement the company announced Tuesday is improving its existing survey tool so businesses can get a better sense of what it will cost to fulfill an order ahead of time.

Kickstarter also added an internal marketing team to help creators promote their campaigns. In early tests, the team helped raise nearly $1 million in pledges for a select group of projects, the company noted.

More creators will have access to the service “when it's ready,” according to Kickstarter.

Kickstarter has been around for 15 years; over 23 million backers have pledged more than $8 billion to creative projects through the site, in that time.

Over a quarter of a million projects have been successfully funded, or reached the goals set by creators, through the service, according to the company.

The platform has helped entrepreneurs launch multi-million dollar campaigns to fund their ideas, such as AnkerMake M5 3D Printerwhich raised nearly $9 million in 2022.

Connected: A 3D printer used by Microsoft, Ford and NASA is now available on the market