Crowdtilt Publicly Launches Its Open Source, Customizable Crowdfunding Platform, Now Called CrowdtiltOpen

Fresh off its $23 million in Series B funding from Andreessen Horowitz and others, crowdfunding platform Crowdtilt is opening up its open source, white-label platform CrowdtiltOpen to all interested business users as of today. This product, previously called Crowdhoster, has been rebranded and relaunched with several more features designed for those who want to better customize and self-host their own fundraising campaigns.

The company initially launched Crowdhoster, which is built using the Crowdtilt API, into private beta last August. To date, it has seen hundreds of projects on its platform, some of the more notable being that of YC-backed nutritional substitute startup, Soylent, which raised over $2.1 million; a software company GNS3 which raised $300,000+; and a health crowdfunding campaign called the Immunity Project, which raised over $450,000.

When discussing Crowdtilt’s funding in December, CEO James Beshara explained that he saw a lot of similarities between it and WordPress, calling it the “WordPress of crowdfunding,” in fact, as businesses could add their own branding, logo, and even modify the open sourced code. (Also of note: WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg happens to be a Crowdtilt investor.)

Today, rebranded to “CrowdtiltOpen,” the tool offers an expanded feature set which includes recurring billing, direct payments (Visa, MasterCard, Discover, Amex), full customization or a choice from provided themes, analytics integration (e.g. Google, AdRoll, Optimizely, etc.), reward tiers, no time limitations, PCI compliance, support for non-profits soliciting donations, multiple campaigns, and as, noted above, bitcoin integration. And it’s still open sourced.

crowdtiltopen homepage

Crowdtilt says the platform is free to use, but will charge standard credit card processing fees of 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction. For now, the company says it has no plans to charge for the current feature set (though, presumably, that could change over time.)

Already, the 4,000 customers on the Crowdhoster sign-up list are being invited to use the newly relaunched platform, which is now publicly open to all.

The interest in this platform is partially responsible for the recent funding round, Beshara recently explained, saying the enterprise tools had “really started to take off,” but had required further investment to develop. The company is also working on taking its platform beyond the U.S., first targeting other English-speaking markets like Canada, the U.K. and Australia.