Oil prices might be sliding down, but the party’s still strong in Texas. How else can we explain that Kickstarter’s most-funded project from the Lone Star State last year was the “Bunch O Balloons,” a water-hose attachment that fills and ties 100 balloons in one go.
The Plano, TX, project took in nearly $930,000—blowing away its $10,000 goal—from 21,455 backers last August and is in production this spring, according to its Kickstarter page. Looking around the state, the top Kickstarter projects feature a variety of projects from wearables to aquaponics, and from an education program for Christian musicians to a “liquid metal.”
The biggest funded project in Texas is still Virtuix Omni, a virtual reality gaming system created by Jan Goetgeluk in Houston, which raised a little more than $1 million in 2013. Goetgeluk has taken Virtuix beyond the crowdfunding realm, and in December, raised $2.7 million right before taking the company to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
Who knows? In time, some of these other startup entrepreneurs might be joining Goetgeluk and Virtuix Omni along the path to the marketplace.
National Correspondent David Holley contributed to this report.
