Each week, new crowdsourcing and crowdfunding platforms continue to pop up at an astonishing rate. Last week, we highlighted four new sites: Appsplit, IndieBacker, FlightFox, and Recorded Future. This week, we showcase five more platforms, four of which launched (or added new functionality) recently. The last, GetFunded, will go live in a few weeks.

DesignCrowd

DesignCrowd has been around for several years, getting its start in Australia in 2008, and then launching in the U.K. Last week, it branched out into North America with the launch of its Canadian site. Globally, DesignCrowd’s lineup of designers numbers over 75,000, but the platform also allows businesses to connect with local designers. It differs from other crowd creativity platforms in that it offers prize money for those who don’t win but still offer appealing designs.

Rock The Post

Rock The Post is a crowdfunding platform that positions itself as the place for small businesses, entrepreneurs, and non-profits to raise money. In several ways, it follows the Kickstarter model — only projects that reach or exceed their goal will get funding, and in return for money, project creators send their backers some form of ‘thank you’ tokens. On top of these common features, however, Rock The Post also offers access to a network of entrepreneurial individuals who may be helpful in brainstorming and executing ideas. Thus, the platform connects businesses not only to funds, but also to potential partners and co-workers.

FundaGeek

FundaGeek, a crowdfunding platform for technology, science, education, and invention projects, launched in 2011. Last week, it launched a portal designed specifically to help researchers at universities. Both students and faculty are eligible to submit project ideas. While getting money through a crowdfunding platform for scientific research is no easy task, FundaGeek’s portal is an alternative to competing for grants from universities, giving students more freedom to pursue the projects they think are important.

PyBossa

PyBossa is a crowd labor microtasking platform created by the Open Knowledge Foundation and the Citizen Cyberscience Center. Unlike Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, which pays its laborers small amounts of money, PyBossa is free and open-source, enabling companies or non-profits working on small budgets to rely on hordes of volunteers to help classify images or geo-code locations, among other tasks. Currently, three projects are featured on the site: helping to identify melanoma, locating urban parks in cities, and tagging humans in Flickr photos.

GetFunded

Finally, last week also saw the opening of the pre-registration for GetFunded. An AppsGenius initiative, GetFunded is pledging to donate between $500 and $5,000 to the 25 most captivating projects that pre-register for its launch, which will take place in about six weeks. GetFunded will initially be a donation-based platform, in which companies will offer goods and services for funding. As the details of the JOBS Act’s crowdfunding regulations become clearer, however, the platform may also give project creators the option of offering equity in return for funds.