In the interests of transparency, please note that one of the four founders didn't complete fulfillment on his last maker-oriented Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1738994529/kikori-open-...
I pledged to the Kikori Kickstarter (which, btw, means I've got some bias in this although I wasn't up for any rewards) so I knew who the guy was, and I happened to notice that he was involved in this one. Even a human reviewer wouldn't have caught that. Well, you could do simple name matching but I don't think that's good enough -- compare this to the no-fly list, for example.
So I'm OK with word of mouth being the governor here. It's also a good indicator that you should research before you pledge. I do a quick web search if I'm backing something from someone I don't know. It helps set my expectations.