Report Says One-Click Startup Bolt Pumped Up Financials

One-click checkout firm Bolt might be in trouble even though it had been stunning customers with its fundraising, The New York Times (NYT) wrote Tuesday (May 10).

Bolt’s technology is a kind of spinoff of Amazon’s “Buy Now” button, which can be plugged into an online merchant’s site and make checkout much easier.

CEO Ryan Breslow, who founded the company at 19 eight years ago, has become savvy with fundraising and has dispensed wisdom through various mediums like TikTok and self-published books.

The company has raised funds at a quick pace and courted entities like Peter Thiel’s fund and BlackRock.

The company has gotten its $11 billion valuation in just over three years, with his alma mater Stanford University having built “almost a cult” around Breslow.

However, the rise has come, at least in part, by stretching the truth, NYT reported, citing interviews with over 50 current and former employees.

NYT reported that Bolt often “overstated” its technical capability and misrepresented the number of merchants using its services, including the names of customers before verifying whether the merchants were able to use the product.

Breslow also reportedly used a fraud detection product which was more indebted to manual review than Breslow said at the time of pitching it.

Many of these accounts came from anonymous sources, NYT said.

The troubles could be mounting, with the 27-year-old Breslow stepping down as CEO in January in a manner described as abrupt. And some investors are now looking at selling stakes. Customers have been questioning the company’s technology, feeling disappointed when it hasn’t lived up to the promise.

In addition, Bolt also announced a hiring freeze for three months. The report says Bolt wants to raise more money.

See also: Bolt Feels Revenue Pinch From Slashed Merchant Fees

PYMNTS wrote that Bolt had been seeing some revenue issues after it cut down on merchant fees.

The company had several funding rounds pushing its valuation from $6 billion in October to $11 billion in January, the company was reportedly seeing more competition from PayPal and Shopify, which had gotten into the one-click realm.