Kickstarter's Aziz Hasan steps down as CEO

Kickstarter CEO Aziz Hasan announced that he is stepping down from his leadership role. Sean Leow, the company's chief operating officer, will be interim CEO.

Hasan said the decision to leave came after a lot of "personal reflection" around his own creative work.

"Over the last three years, Kickstarter has witnessed the power of this community reach truly historic heights of support for creative projects of all shapes and sizes. We saw pledges for creative projects surpass $6 billion, the total number of creative projects funded reach beyond 200,000, and our community of backers grew to over 20 million people," Hasan said in a statement.

Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity.

The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, Kickstarter has received nearly $6 billion in pledges from 20 million backers to fund 205,000 projects, such as films, music, stage shows, comics, journalism, video games, technology, publishing, and food-related projects.

"While my last day as CEO will be April 4, I will remain on as an advisor to the company for the next several months as the Board searches for the next CEO. In the interim, Sean is the right leader for Kickstarter.

"He has brought his passion for empowering creative people through technology to the platform and its community for over six years," Hasan added.

In December, 2021, the platform planned to develop a decentralised crowdfunding protocol in the blockchain. Kickstarter received complaints and concerns from users when the announcement came out.