# Exploding Kittens Kickstarter campaign

> A card-game campaign drew $8.78 million in Kickstarter pledges.

- Owner: Elan Lee, Matthew Inman and Shane Small
- Kind: Campaign
- Sector: Gaming
- Seed date: 2015-01-20
- Peak date: Week of Jan 26, 2015
- Date basis: Dates use the stated precision; chart positions are date anchors.
- Spread Score: 43 (Notable, provisional), v1.2
- Mechanics: Challenge, Maker origin, Platform jump, Press loop, Underdog

## Summary

The creators launched a Kickstarter campaign through The Oatmeal’s audience. Backers then joined photo challenges and parties. The campaign closed as Kickstarter’s most-backed project with $8.78 million pledged; the team later reported selling 460,000 copies.

## Timeline

- 2015-01-20 — Elan Lee, Matthew Inman and Shane Small (Open web) — The team launched its Kickstarter campaign for Exploding Kittens.
- 2015-01-20 — bearded / r/boardgames (Reddit) — A launch-day Reddit thread drew discussion of the game’s price and international shipping.
- 2015-01-20 — The Washington Post / GamesBeat (Press) — The Washington Post and GamesBeat covered the campaign on its launch day.

The full timeline, metrics and sources are on the case page, or via the Pro API (https://howitspread.com/developers).

Canonical URL: https://howitspread.com/cases/exploding-kittens-kickstarter

Cite as: How It Spread (2026). “Exploding Kittens Kickstarter campaign.” Case HIS-00864. Spread Score v1.2: 43/100. Updated 2026-10-15. https://howitspread.com/id/HIS-00864