An upstart crowdfunding platform tries to ensure promised delivery dates for projects are met

By G.F. | SEATTLE

DESIGNERS of the Pebble Watch were no tyros or slouches. Yet no amount of expertise and industry would have helped them meet the five-month deadline they set themselves in April 2012 for delivery of the device to backers of their Kickstarter campaign after more than 85,000 orders flooded in. Inevitably, mass production proved fiddlier than expected; nine months late Pebbles are still being dispatched to the original buyers.

A circular image split in half: the left side shows a hazy, red planet-like surface, while the right shows colourful microbe and plant growth in a Petri dish, forming a vivid, graphic pattern.