Maju Kuruvilla is not any longer CEO of the one-click checkout company bolt. It is replaced by Justin Grooms, Bolt’s global sales director and now interim CEO, based on Grooms’ LinkedIn profile.
Kuruvilla I did not have much to say concerning the change, but acknowledged it on either side LinkedIn And Xby posting, simply “Checked out from with one click @Bolt! Forward” with a rocket emoji. (He declined further comment.) Arjun Sethi, co-founder of the enterprise firm Tribal capitalcommented on his post on LinkedIn, noting that the manager was “amazing” to work with.
The Bolt board voted this weekend to remove him. The information reported.
Kuruvilla, the previous Amazon manager, took over the management in 2011 January 2022, after founder Ryan Breslow resigned.
Grooms joined Bolt five years ago after serving in corporate leadership roles, amongst other roles Ultraleap (formerly Leap Motion), Datron World Communications and Qualcomm, based on his LinkedIn. The company told The Information that the CEO’s role had modified and that Kuruvilla’s departure was “amicable,” but didn’t provide further details.
Bolt is not any stranger to controversy. Its then 27-year-old founder, Breslowfounded the corporate after dropping out of Stanford and was widely known for his very outspoken tirades.
In an interview with Connie Loizos from TechCrunch In the month he resigned, he said the corporate had signed about 10 large contracts within the second half of 2021, each of which was larger “than any Bolt has previously signed in the company’s history.”
But then the corporate faced some difficulties. bolt was once the topic of 1 Federal investigation Incorporating Breslow regarding whether the corporate violated securities laws when raising funds in 2021. At the time, Bolt was on the lookout for one Series E round valued at $355 million The company valued this at $11 billion. The company around $1 billion was raised total enterprise capital-backed financing.
There were also several rounds of layoffs, including one in May 2022 When it was announced, at the very least 185 employees, or a 3rd of the workforce, were laid off. Then one other one in Early 2023 and a in December 2023 This affected 29% of staff.
In October, Kuruvilla, then CEO, told TechCrunch that the SEC was now not investigating Bolt and that this was the case worked towards profitability and had some recent features within the pipeline, like improving returns and providing personalized experiences around its universal shopper network. The company announced partnerships in November with retailers including Saks OFF 5TH, Shinola, Filson, Lafayette 148 and Toys “R” Us.
More recently, Bolt signed one handle the money register In doing so, Bolt became Checkout.com’s “exclusive one-click checkout provider” and Checkout.com became Bolt’s preferred payment partner.
Want more fintech news in your inbox? Sign up for TechCrunch Fintech Here.
Would you want to achieve us with a tip? Email us at maryann@techcrunch.com or chall.techcrunch@gmail.com or send us a message via Signal at 408.204.3036. You also can send a message to your entire TechCrunch crew at Tips@techcrunch.com. For safer communication Click here to contact usincluding SecureDrop (Instructions here) and links to encrypted messaging apps.
