It’s no secret that crowdfunding is a fast-growing movement, but did you know its success leads back to the 2008 financial crisis? A report by the World Bank, issued late last year, credits the crisis as one of the main catalysts to spur interest in crowdfunding, as more traditional forms of equity to establish new businesses became harder to get.

Since then, the numbers have spoken for themselves. Up until now, most people have focused on the figures for specific projects (like the $10.2 million Pebble raised on Kickstarter) or the price tag that some of those projects have commanded in their post-crowdfunding days—i.e. Facebook’s $2 billion acquisition of Oculus.

The Crowdfunding Centre, which has collected data from roughly 125,000 crowdfunded projects worldwide, recently issued a major data analysis of the fundraising practice during the first quarter of 2014. The study, the most recent data available, gives a clear look at just how big crowdfunding has become and offers some insight as to how far it still has to go.

Read more at CNBC.com