Kickstarters growth has been huge, with $500 million raised in the past year alone. Although the vast majority of backers come from a select few countries, Kickstarter is nonetheless global: since the sites launch, 5.7 million people from 224 countries have backed projects. Neil Gaiman is Kickstarters most influential user Renowned author Neil Gaiman is named the most influential user, having backed and promoted hundreds of projects, while Kickstarter engineer Tieg Zaharia is named most Kickstarter after personally backing over 1,000 projects in around four years — over five projects per week on average.