Sony launches its own crowd-funding platform

Sony has launched its own crowd-funding platform, with the intention of financing the company's own projects. The platform is called First Flight and is supposed to promote new business ideas in an effort to bring the company back in to profitability after a few years of bad financial performance.

The First Flight platform will allow people to pre-order new devices developed be Sony employees, although it is all limited to Sony's home country, Japan, for the time being. Right now, there are three projects up for pre-order on First Flight, known as the MESH Smart DIY Kit and the FES e-ink watch.

There is a third project that is 20 per cent of the way to being funded, known as the HUIS Remote Controller, which currently has a five million yen funding goal. On the First Flight site, we see a familiar layout to Kickstarter, with an introcution page which includes pictures and videos along with tabs for updates for the project.

Crowd funding has really taken off in recent years but Sony appears to be the first large corporation to create its own platform in order to fund its own projects publicly. It is certainly a step in a different direction but given Sony's financial position, this may end up being a good option for the company.

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KitGuru Says: Sony doesn't necessarily have the money these days to waste on funding projects that may not come to fruition. In that regard, it makes sense for Sony to gauge market interest in projects before going through with it, although crowd funding is a different way to go, especially for a company as large and well known as Sony. I imagine there will be some conflicting views surrounding this. What do you think of Sony launching its own crowd funding projects?

Via: The Verge

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