Maju Kuruvilla is no longer the CEO of one-click checkout company Bolt. He will be replaced as interim CEO by Bolt's head of global sales, Justin Grooms, according to Grooms' LinkedIn profile.
Kuruvilla didn't say much about the change, but confirmed it on both LinkedIn and X by simply posting, “Checkout with one click.” @bolt! Forward,” he wrote with a rocket emoji. (He declined to comment further.) Commenting on his LinkedIn post, Arjun Sethi, co-founder of venture firm Tribe Capital, said he and the executive were “great to work with.'' It was wonderful.”
The Bolt board of directors voted to dismiss him this weekend, the Information reported.
Kuruvilla, a former Amazon executive, took over as CEO in January 2022 after founder Ryan Breslow stepped down.
Groom joined Bolt five years ago after holding executive positions at companies including Ultraleap (formerly Leap Motion), Datron World Communications and Qualcomm, according to his LinkedIn. The company told The Information that the CEO's role had changed and called Kuruvilla's departure “amicable,” but did not provide further details.
Bolt is no stranger to controversy. The founder, who was 27 years old at the time, breslowHe founded his own company after dropping out of Stanford University and was generally known for his outspoken outbursts.
In an interview with TechCrunch's Connie Loizos in the month he resigned, he said the company had about 10 major deals in the second half of 2021, and that each deal was “one of the biggest deals Bolt has ever signed in the company's history.” It's bigger than any other contract we've ever signed.”
But then the company faced some difficulties. Bolt was at one point the subject of a federal investigation involving Breslow into whether the company violated securities laws during its 2021 fundraising. At the time, Bolt was seeking $355 million in a Series E round that valued the company at $11 billion. The company has raised a total of approximately $1 billion in venture support.
There have also been several rounds of layoffs, including layoffs in May 2022 when at least 185 employees, a third of the workforce, were reportedly laid off. He then had another one in early 2023 and one in December 2023, affecting 29% of his employees.
In October, then-CEO Kuruvilla told TechCrunch that the SEC was no longer considering Bolt and that the company was working to improve profitability and improving product returns. He said several new features are in the pipeline, including the ability to offer personalized experiences on the Universal Shopper Network. In November, the company announced partnerships with retailers including Saks OFF 5TH, Shinola, Filson, Lafayette 148 and Toys “R” Us.
Most recently, Bolt signed a deal with Checkout, making Bolt the “exclusive one-click checkout provider” for Checkout.com, and Checkout.com becoming “Bolt's preferred payments partner.”
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