Likely they were scared because of the massive amount of orders going way past where they were expecting. Their original partner probably wasn't nearly big enough to handle those orders.
Many kickstarters in that situation push forward and end up with massive delays and a bit of a black eye from the launch with lots of complaints. And that's before the crazy shipping in covid times. They probably figured that wasn't worth it and with that amount of interest hope they will find a mass production partner to go full retail so they don't do it all themselves.
Understandable.