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Crowdfunding, or collecting small amounts of money from large groups of people for a common cause, was first used in the 1880’s when Joseph Pulitzer collected $100,000 from 125,000+ citizens to help build the Statue of Liberty.
Yet, not everybody has a newspaper to promote such an ambitious project, so crowdfunding didn’t really take off until the onset of the internet. Since then, it has been used to fund a multitude of creative ideas around the world including some right here in Atlanta, including this robotic bartender and helping these underground supper-clubbers turn legit with their own restaurant.