iKamper Skycamp Rooftop Tent

Key numbers

The product

The iKamper Skycamp is a hard-shell rooftop tent that mounts on a car's roof rack and unfolds into a two-to-four-person sleeping space in about one minute. It solves the pain of bulky ground tents and pop-up trailers by combining a rigid, aerodynamic shell with a fold-out canvas cabin and memory-foam mattress. It is aimed at road-trippers, families and overlanders who want to camp anywhere they park, elevated above wet or uneven terrain. Unlike soft-shell rooftop tents, the Skycamp expands sideways to create unusually large interior space while keeping setup fast. It has earned multiple Red Dot design awards and spawned a full line of accessories, awnings and modular camp kitchens.

How they did it

iKamper was founded in 2013 by Soon Park, a former guitar player and self-taught engineer, after a three-year family road trip across North America in a pop-up trailer. Frustrated by slow, cramped sleeping setups, he spent years prototyping hard-shell rooftop tents in Paju, South Korea. The fourth model, the Skycamp, launched on Kickstarter in March 2017 with a $100,000 goal and crossed $1 million within six hours. The campaign finished at roughly $2.37 million in 45 days, one of the most-funded design products in Kickstarter's history at the time. Overnight demand forced the tiny company to scale from about 15 tents a month to 1,000 units, growing from 5 to 21 staff in 18 months. It opened a US office near Seattle and expanded into more than 30 countries. By 2023 iKamper held roughly 6% of the global rooftop-tent market and was named a World Class Product of Korea.

Why it worked

• Product looked aspirational on camera, earning free mainstream press that fueled the campaign
• One-minute setup and a unique expanding hard shell beat slow soft-top competitors
• Founder lived the problem during a 58,000-mile family road trip before designing
• The overlanding community turned owners into a loyal global fan base