Ryan Breslow is officially back.
The founder of One-Click Checkout Company's Bolt reappelled the helm as CEO in March, but Breslow announced a new “SuperApp” on Wednesday, hoping to officially mark Fintech's return as leader. In an exclusive interview with TechCrunch, he described the new product on a single platform as “one-click crypto and daily payments.”
The controversial entrepreneur dropped out of Stanford in January 2022 before resigning from the San Francisco-based company that started in 2014. In recent years, Breslow has been the target of multiple investor litigation cases and has faced allegations that he misinterpreted investors by inflated metrics while raising funds when he last ran the company, and violated security laws.
Breslow acknowledges that Bolt's revenues have not been strong in recent years. But he hopes to change that with this new consumer app. He ambitiously hopes to serve as a “intensive and personalized hub of financial services.”
The app competes with many other companies at once, including Crypto Exchange Coinbase, Payments Platform Zelle, PayPal, and more. According to Breslow, the advantage is the ability to do what everything else does from one place through mobile.
For example, the app allows users to purchase, sell, send and receive major cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, USDC, Solana, and Polygon directly within the app. Users are provisioned with zero hash on-chain balance to check the balance in real time, Breslow says.
“We founded Vault 11 years ago to build the easiest app to buy, sell and send crypto. I don't think this is going well in the market yet. Today is a major day. “We call it '99% Coinbase'. He may be the least technical, but he still wants to take part in the buying and selling of crypto. (Volt in 2022 paid $1.5 billion to cryptocurrency payment company Wyre. It started out as an “easy way to encryption, sell and send” before pivoting to build a one-click checkout first.)
Breslow also wants to take it where Zel left off with the standalone app shutdown. Bolt's new product allows users to process peer payments “with just one click” within the app. With Zelle, users can only send payments to peers through the banking app.
In addition to that, Bolt is partnering with Midland States Bank to also offer debit cards featuring reward programs, including up to 3% direct cashback on eligible purchases and up to 7% direct cashback on Love.com store credits. (Love.com is another startup founded by Breslow in 2023, focusing on health and wellness. He remains CEO.)
Because Volt does not provide banking services, users will need to transfer money from another bank account to this bank account to fund their purchases with a debit card.
Finally, the new app also offers real-time order tracking for users. This also offers what other companies like Klarna offer in their apps.
The app is available on iOS today and will soon be available on the Google Play Store. Once downloaded, users will be added to the WaitList, allowing iOS users to descend from the WaitList first.
“Working nights and weekends”
The new “SuperApp” was built within just six months, Breslow claims. Groom Justin (Bolto's President and Former Interim CEO) and Kartik Ramachandran (Bolto's Chief Product Officer) began working on the app before Breslow's return. Breslow helped advise them for the months before his return to work.
“Our team has worked nights and weekends to prepare this on time,” Breslow said. Currently, Bolt has around 140 employees.
Despite the lack of revenue growth, Breslow claims that Bolt is growing from a user's perspective. There is a two-sided network of tens of millions of US shoppers and “hundreds” merchants, including Revolve and Kendra Scott.
Bolt's AR was around $28 million with a total profit of around $28 million as of the end of March 2024, Tech Publication Newcomer reported last year.
“Before I returned, our income wasn't growing much and we haven't shut down as many businesses as we would have hoped. I don't think we thought the company was running. That's what I would change very quickly,” Breslow told TechCrunch. “But our platform continued to register shoppers and attract the growth of our network. When I left, it was 10 million. Today, our shopper network totals 80 million in the US, making it even bigger worldwide.”
He hopes to turn that network into Volt's revenue by making money from interchange fees for crypto purchases and sales.
“We already have a lot of data that our users are providing.
Litigation
Last year, the fintech company reportedly was trying to raise $450 million in an unusually structured transaction valued at $14 billion. The deal raised questions about the unusual use of $250 million in “marketing credits” and the lack of confirmation from investors who were misidentified as its lead.
Several Bolt investors, including BlackRock and Hedosophia, have appealed to block the round, Forbes reported, but it was voluntarily rejected by all parties, Bolt announced in March.
Today, Bolt is in a new round in “early conversations” and the Breslow project could be closed in the “mid to near future.”
Breslow was previously sued by former investor Activant Capital for a $30 million loan the founder had taken. Activant alleged that Breslow added the startup with a $30 million debt by borrowing that amount and paying back the default.
The lawsuit was finally resolved, and Bolt agreed to buy back Activant's shares for $37 million last year.
Speaking at the Fintech Meetup in Las Vegas in March, Breslow defended the loan and framed it as an act of loyalty to Bolt, rather than the self-dealing allegedly claimed by the Activent lawsuit.
“It's been a huge challenge as I've seen a huge decline over the past three years and have regained the trust of the judges, investigators and our team, but it's been an amazing learning experience,” he told TechCrunch. “I've learned more over the last three years than I did last ten years ago.”
He added: “And while it was challenging, I couldn't be more excited about the opportunity in front of me. I'm grateful that our company has overcome the storm.”
Bolt, which provides software to retailers to speed up checkouts, raised about $1 billion in total venture support funds, once valued at $11 billion. Investors include funds and accounts managed by BlackRock, Schonfeld, Invus Opportunities, CreditEase, HIG Growth, Moore Strategic Ventures and others.