Kickstarter crowdfunding app.
Chris Ratcliffe | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Kickstarter quietly sent shareholders a dividend in early March, a move that's virtually unheard of in the tech start-up world.
It's extremely rare for a start-up to pay a dividend, particularly one that has no intention of ever going public. The news was first reported by Bloomberg. (Kickstarter confirmed to CNBC, but declined to comment on the size of the dividend.)
This isn't the global crowdfunding platform's first unusual move: it became a public benefit corporation last year. "More and more voices are rejecting business as usual, and the pursuit of profit above all," the founders wrote in a blog post at the time of the announcement.