Crowdfunding Hall of Fame: 9 Successful Crowdfunded Startups Crowdfunding, which started as a way to fund small projects, has become a serious funding machine.

Crowdfunding started as a way to fund small projects and rally a community of investors around them--but over the past couple of years, it has turned into a serious funding machine. As our nascent Hall of Fame shows, this type of funding can rocket small startups into the rarefied air of venture-capital-backed companies and build a vast customer base before the first product even ships.