Kickstarter becomes ‘public benefit corporation’

Kickstarter Inc has reincorporated itself as Kickstarter PBC, and is now classed as a ‘public benefit corporation’.

Speculation has been rife as to whether the crowdfunding platform, which remains a popular choice for indie devs and start-ups to source finance for their games, would go public or sell to another company, but the co-founders instead took this rather different option.

“We don’t ever want to sell or go public,” chief executive Yancey Strickler told The New York Times. “That would push the company to make choices that we don’t think are in the best interest of the company.”

Becoming a ‘public benefit corporation’ means that firms must be doing something that benefits the public, and take the public into account when making decisions going forward. Ultimately, Kickstarter now has to be highly transparent in how it operates. 

However, it does not prevent Kickstarter from selling itself or going public in the future, and the crowd-funding platform still operates on a for-profit basis.

In its new charter, Kickstarter reiterates that its mission is “to help bring creative projects to life”, and pledges to “care for the health of its ecosystem and integrity of its systems”. It also promises to never sell user data to third parties and respect privacy rights.