Ubuntu starts $32m crowdsource on Indiegogo to fund its Edge smartphone

Most audacious fundraising attempt ever hopes to raise enough to produce 40,000 phones

Canonical has launched a crowdsourcing venture on Indiegogo in an attempt to raise $32m in just 31 days to fund the development and manufacture of its Ubuntu Edge smartphone.

On the video appeal for funding, company founder Mark Shuttleworth explains how creating 40,000 of the devices independently will "prove" to phone manufacturers that the technology within them is suitable for the mass-market, and that this early crowdsourcing venture will help to "drive innovation".

Shuttleworth believes that "millions" of people are passionate about the phone, which generated a bit of a buzz at this year's Mobile World Congress conference.

The $32m Shuttleworth is asking for is considerably more than any other crowdsourcing appeal of this type. The appeal has so far raised over $3.28m, and shifted three out of its 50 "one of a kind" funding packages. These cost $10,000 and entitle the purchaser to a numbered phone of the first 50 produced, plus an invitation to the phone's launch event.

After an exclusive one-day offer of $600 for the first 5000 Edges, the pledge cost for a device now stands at $830 per phone.

The current crowdfunding record is $10.3m on Kickstarter for Pebble Technology's e-paper based Pebble smart watch.

Ubuntu believes the Edge is more versatile than any other smartphone because of its cross-platform compatibility. As well as being able to view apps on the device, users can plug the Edge into a monitor and its operating system will reformat apps to run in desktop mode, like a regular Ubuntu build.

Shuttleworth has also stated that the Edge will have more operating RAM than a "typical high-end phone", allowing it to do far more of its processing internally rather than "offloading processing to the cloud", as he believes most current phones do.

The Ubuntu Edge Indiegogo campaign ends on 21 August 2013.