Ukrainian startup Time 4 Machine crowdfunds $430,000

A Ukrainian model-making startup, Time 4 Machine, announced late on May 4 that it had raised $430,000 on the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter to produce its metal, mechanical models. The money was pledged by 2,800 backers from all over the world.

Having launched its crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter on March 26 with a modest goal of $15,000, Time 4 Machine hit its target within a day. By May 4, the company said it had exceeded its goal by 28 times more.

The company has created a range of functioning, mechanical models that are made almost entirely from metal and can be snapped together without glue. The models, which include a steam locomotive, tractor, plane, and even a working clock-timer are constructed from metal cogwheels, struts, and panels.

Time 4 Machine founder Denis Okhrimenko thinks his company has succeeded on Kickstarter because people like things that are impossible to find in usual stores. “Kickstarter likes fun and smart stuff, which you can’t buy anywhere else,” he told the Kyiv Post on May 5.

Assembled, all of the models have moving parts: for example, a plane has spinning propellers and a car has opening doors and compartments. According to the company, the models are made for interior design, education and as a gift, toy, or gadget.

A price for one model ranges from $18 (a business card holder) to $112 (a steam locomotive). The set with all the nine models costs $432, and 143 people have already pre-ordered it.

All the pre-ordered models are to be shipped across the world in August 2019. And Okhrimenko is sure all the pre-orders will be shipped in time.

“We know for sure how much time the production will take. And we are absolutely confident that we can ship everything this summer,” he said. “In fact, our models had been already in production, for a long time.”

Okhrymenko founded the startup in 2016, and it now has a staff of 20 people. This is the second Kickstarter campaign for the company: in 2017, it collected $50,000 in pre-orders from Kickstarter.

Time 4 Machine isn’t the first startup for Okhrimenko. In 2013, the Ukrainian co-founded successful startup Ugears and invented its first mechanical wooden models, which look similar to Time 4 Machine toys but made of wood. He sold his 25-percent share for $360,000 just before Ugears signed a distribution deal with the Walt Disney Company in 2017. Okhrimenko claimed Ugears co-founder Gennady Shestak pushed him out of the business.

Today, apart from Time 4 Machine, Okhrimenko runs PAGL, a company that makes construction kits with blocks made of cardboard, with which kids can build structures the size of a person.

The Kyiv Post’s technology coverage is sponsored by Ciklum and NIX Solutions. The content is independent of the donors.