Click around crowdfunding sites and you’ll find campaigns to fund vacations, make documentaries and build 3-D printers. You’ll also find the Paragon Induction Cooktop, a project by an arm of General Electric. It can cook sous vide, sear, deep fry, poach, braise and warm up food — all controllable by a handy mobile app. As of Friday morning, it had raised nearly $311,000 from 1,900 backers on its Indiegogo site. GE isn’t the only large company raising money through sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo, normally places where people fund pet projects, and startups test their first products.
