Ryan Breslow, who dropped out of Stanford University to found Bolt, has been embroiled in several legal battles lately.
Getty Images
Former billionaire Ryan Breslow, the troubled founding father of payments unicorn Bolt, has proposed a settlement with aggrieved investor Activant Capital, marking the top of a heated legal battle during which Breslow was accused of giving the corporate $30 million to saddle him with personal debt and fire the board members who had pressured him to pay it back.
Activant sued Breslow in a Delaware court last July after its founder Steve Sarracino was faraway from Bolt’s board together with Arjun Sethi of Tribe Capital and Brian Reinken of WestCap. Neither Activant nor Breslow immediately responded to a request for comment.
At the time, Breslow had recently defaulted on a $30 million personal loan secured by the corporate’s coffers. Instead of canceling his shares to repay the quantity, Breslow allowed tens of millions of dollars to be withdrawn from Bolt’s checking account. He then fired those board members because “he didn’t believe [they] “were the best people to support his vision for the continued growth and success of Bolt,” Breslow said in a lawsuit. And of their place was installed a cohort of his friends: the musician Larrance Dopson, the journalist Esther Wojcicki and The mighty geese Child actor and crypto investor Brock Pierce. All three have since left the board and were replaced by one other group of Breslow’s acquaintances (one in every of whom has since also left).
Do you have got a tip for us? Contact reporters Sarah Emerson at semerson@forbes.com or 510-473-8820 on Signal and Iain Martin at iain.martin@forbes.com.
Last 12 months, Activant alleged that Breslow’s actions amounted to a hostile coup geared toward replacing the previous board with individuals who would ultimately obey his will. The firm alleged that Breslow’s recent directors were instructed to review, structure, negotiate and approve “matters relating to the satisfaction” of loan repayment and accused him of breaching his fiduciary duties to the corporate while he was there used his money to complement himself. In a rebuttal, Breslow said members offered “new perspectives and deep networks” and called Activant’s litigation “nothing more than sour grapes.”
In Silicon Valley, Breslow has grow to be a cautionary tale concerning the rise and fall of young founders. Forbes has reported. After launching Bolt in 2018 as a one-click checkout platform, Breslow won over a few of Wall Street’s biggest investors, who poured $1 billion into the corporate, boosting its once $11 billion valuation. But now, at age 30, his legacy is tarnished by a series of legal and private disputes, a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation (which didn’t lead to any enforcement motion), several rounds of mass layoffs at Bolt, and his resignation as CEO.
According to a plan of settlement filed this week by Activant, Breslow and three current and former board members, Bolt will cancel 13,397,270 shares of common stock previously owned by Breslow, valued at $37,378,383. The same shares had already been returned to Bolt as a part of a young offer in January and were valued at $2.79, the next price than the worth suggested by investors ($1.26) and employees ($0.63 ). Forbes previously reported. Breslow returned these shares to Bolt to pay his loan principal and interest in addition to “certain costs incurred by Bolt in connection with the termination.” Forbes reported that Breslow tried to bill the corporate for tens of millions of dollars in expenses, equivalent to travel expenses and private security fees.
Forbes also reported that sellers were required to indemnify Bolt and its affiliates from a wide range of claims; In the brand new agreement, Activant stated that in consequence of this disclosure, it had decided to not take part in the tender offer but would sell back all of its shares valued at $36,494,674 to the corporate.
It is probably going that Breslow will retain control of the board despite the cancellation of tens of millions of his shares, several sources near the corporate said Forbes They imagine the tender offer was helpful to Breslow since it reduced the popular stock shareholder base. Forbes However, estimates that this implies Breslow is not any longer a billionaire. As a part of the settlement, “all compensation, compensation, fees, expenses, loans or credit arrangements to or involving Breslow” must even be approved by an independent committee “composed of at least two non-founding members of Bolt’s board of directors.”
Separately, Bolt is currently being sued by a serious customer, sportswear giant Fanatics, who claims the payments company touted its relationship with potential customers and investors while concurrently terminating its contract with Fanatics – a claim Bolt has reportedly denied The information. And in March, Maju Kuruvilla, who took over the role of managing director following Breslow’s departure, left the corporate and was replaced by Bolt’s global sales director Justin Grooms. In court filings, Activant claimed that Kuruvilla had been removed by the board. Bolt didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.
Breslow remained tight-lipped about his plans for the longer term, but since founding Bolt he has co-founded several startups, including wellness platform Love.com, equity lending platform Prism and his enterprise capital fund Familywhose investments include male contraception, an “alternative sports league,” and a members-only network.
MORE FROM FORBES
