Professor Murmann's Blog: Kickstarter reincorporates itself as “public benefit company”

Kickstarter reincorporates itself as “public benefit company”

The founders of Kickstarter wanted to ensure that their company does not stray from their fundamental objective of ““help bring creative projects to life.” Now they have reincorporated themselves as “public benefit company”.  The NY Times reports:

As co-founders of Kickstarter, the popular online crowdfunding website that lets people raise money to help fund all manner of projects, including cooking gadgets and movies, Mr. Strickler and Mr. Chen could have tried to take their company public or sell it, earning millions of dollars for themselves and other shareholders.

Instead, they announced on Sunday that Kickstarter was reincorporating as a “public benefit corporation,” a legal change they said would ensure that money — or the promise of it — would not corrupt their company’s mission of enabling creative projects to be funded.

“We don’t ever want to sell or go public,” said Mr. Strickler, Kickstarter’s chief executive. “That would push the company to make choices that we don’t think are in the best interest of the company.

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kickstarter eating area