Bolt’s CEO Resigns Two Weeks After Securing $11 Billion Valuation for the Fintech Startup

(Bloomberg) -- Ryan Breslow, a founder of Bolt Financial Inc., said he's stepping down as chief executive officer, two weeks after securing an $11 billion valuation for the business.

Breslow, 27, will become executive chairman. Maju Kuruvilla, a 44-year-old Bolt executive and a former vice president at Amazon.com Inc., will be promoted to CEO. TechCrunch reported the move earlier Monday.

Bolt makes payment software for online shopping websites, including Forever 21. It has been around for seven years but experienced a surge of investor interest in the last few months. The company raised capital at a $6 billion valuation in October and then at $11 billion this month.

But a strange series of events cast a cloud over the company since that last deal. Breslow had written in a blog post about the funding that BlackRock Inc. led the deal. BlackRock said it didn't, and the post was quietly revised. Breslow, a prolific Twitter user, posted a series of tweets accusing a competitor, Stripe Inc., of conspiring with venture capitalists to harm rivals. The posts were widely panned.

Breslow said in an interview that his resignation was planned weeks ago, before the latest financing was completed. Breslow will spend his time shaping the “culture and vision” as well as on business development, while Kuruvilla takes the top management seat, he said.

“The only thing that was keeping me in the seat was ego,” Breslow said. “This lets me focus on my superpowers.”

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