Maju Kuruvilla is not CEO of one-click checkout firm Bolt. He’s changed by Justin Grooms, Bolt’s world head of gross sales, who’s now interim CEO, according to Grooms’ LinkedIn profile.
Kuruvilla didn’t have a lot to say concerning the change however did verify it each on LinkedIn and X, by posting, merely “One-Click Checkedout from @bolt! Onwards” with a rocket emoji. (He declined to remark additional.) Arjun Sethi, a co-founder of the enterprise agency Tribe Capital, commented on his put up on LinkedIn, noting that it was “amazing working with” the manager.
The Bolt board reportedly “voted to remove him this weekend,” The Information reported.
Kuruvilla, the previous Amazon govt, took over as CEO in January 2022 after founder Ryan Breslow famously stepped down.
Grooms joined Bolt 5 years in the past after serving in govt positions at firms, together with Ultraleap (previously Leap Movement), Datron World Communications and Qualcomm, his LinkedIn says. The corporate informed The Data that the CEO position had modified and mentioned that Kuruvilla’s departure was “amicable” however offered no additional particulars.
Bolt isn’t any stranger to controversy. Its then-27-year-old founder, Breslow, began the corporate after dropping out of Stanford. He stepped down as CEO in January 2022, and was usually recognized for his very outspoken rants.
In an interview with TechCrunch’s Connie Loizos that very same month, he mentioned the corporate had signed roughly 10 main offers within the second half of 2021, with every being larger “than any that Bolt has signed in the company’s history previously.”
However then the corporate confronted some struggles. Bolt was at one time the topic of a federal probe involving Breslow relating to whether or not the corporate violated any securities legal guidelines throughout fundraising in 2021. That’s when Bolt was searching for a $355 million Series E round that valued the corporate at $11 billion. The corporate raised around $1 billion in whole venture-backed funding.
And there have been a number of rounds of layoffs, together with one in May 2022 when it was reported at the least 185 staff, or one-third of its workforce, had been let go. Then one other in early 2023 and one in December 2023 that affected 29% of its workers.
In October, Kuruvilla, then CEO, informed TechCrunch that the SEC was not wanting into Bolt and that it was working toward profitability and had some new options within the pipeline, like bettering merchandise returns and offering customized experiences round its common shopper community. The corporate introduced partnerships with retailers, together with Saks OFF 5TH, Shinola, Filson, Lafayette 148 and Toys “R” Us, in November.
Extra not too long ago, Bolt signed a deal with Checkout through which Bolt turned Checkout.com’s “exclusive one-click checkout provider” and Checkout.com turning into “Bolt’s preferred payment partner.”
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