Pebble Time has surpassed the Coolest Cooler for most successful crowd funding campaign of all time. The smartwatch startup company, Pebble Technology Corporation, plans to release their new Time smartwatch in May of this year. So far their Kickstarter campaign has raised over $16.5 million in crowdfunding revenue, surpassing the previous record holder, the Coolest Cooler, which raised $13.3 million. And Pebble Time still ahs 21 days to go in their Kickstarter campaign, as they were the fastest to raise $1 million in the crowdfunding website’s six-year history. They were able to raise $1 million in a little over a half an hour and over $6.2 million in under four hours.

The startup tech company held the previous record with their first generation smartwatch raising $10.3 million on Kickstarter in 2012. The Coolest Cooler, a cooler with Bluetooth speakers and integrated blender, took the crown last summer raising $13.3 million.

Pebble’s new Time smartwatch comes with an e-reader screen similar to the one used for Amazon’s Kindle. This allows for a longer battery life, as Pebble promises 7 days of battery life.  In addition to the extended battery life, the watch is also water resistant.

This startup company now has validation as it looks towards future competition with Apple’s smartwatch. The founders of Pebble have all but nice things to say about the crowdfunding website, Kickstarter, as they supported the company ever since they were just five guys in a living room in Palo Alto.

Pebble’s success on Kickstarter in 2012 really brought the crowdfunding website to life, as it paved the way for other tech hardware startups to use this method of gaining capital.

The small tech startup has been able to compete with the big players like Samsung, LG, and Motorola thanks to crowdfunding vis Kickstarter. The competition will be difficult, but this story demonstrates the power of crowdfunding in allowing smaller players to make big impacts and inspire market change.