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$2 Billion Has Been Raised on GoFundMe It took the personal crowdfunding site five years go get to the first billion-dollar mark and only nine months to hit that second billion.

By Catherine Clifford

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

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Two billion dollars has been raised on the crowdfunding platform GoFundMe.

It took five years for the personal crowdfunding site to reach the first billion-dollar threshold, but only nine months for the site to hit the second billion, according to a post from CEO Rob Solomon published this week.

That means that just about as much money has been raised on GoFundMe as on the ultra popular crowdfunding website Kickstarter. In October, Kickstarter crossed that same $2 billion threshold.

Related: The First 100,000 Successful Kickstarter Campaigns, in 10 Numbers

GoFundMe and Kickstarter have different target markets. GoFundMe is a platform that helps people fundraise for personal causes and life events, such as paying for medical bills, personal emergencies or education expenses. Kickstarter, meanwhile, does not allow any campaigns for charity on the platform and instead caters to artists, filmmakers and other creatives.

Taken together, the GoFundMe and Kickstarter $2 billion milestones are indications of the explosive growth of crowdfunding over the last handful of years.

GoFundMe was founded in 2010 and since then, more than 20 million people have donated to 2 million different campaigns, according to the post from Solomon.

Related: Women Raise More Money With Crowdfunding, Research Shows

Catherine Clifford

Senior Entrepreneurship Writer at CNBC

Catherine Clifford is senior entrepreneurship writer at CNBC. She was formerly a senior writer at Entrepreneur.com, the small business reporter at CNNMoney and an assistant in the New York bureau for CNN. Clifford attended Columbia University where she earned a bachelor's degree. She lives in Brooklyn, N.Y. You can follow her on Twitter at @CatClifford.

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