Former billionaire Ryan Breslow, the embattled founder of Bills Unicorn Bolt, has proposed a settlement with aggrieved investor Activant Capital, marking the end of a heated lawsuit in which Breslow accused it of saddling the company with $30 million in private debt and cutting off its power. members, which had prompted him to pay for it.
Activant sued Breslow last July in a Delaware court after its founder, Steve Sarracino, was ousted from Bolt’s board of directors, along 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 private loan secured through the company’s coffers. Instead of canceling his moves to pay the sum, Breslow allowed millions of dollars to be withdrawn from Bolt’s bank account. He later got rid of some of the board members because “he didn’t, they were the best people to help him support his vision of Bolt’s continued expansion and success,” Breslow said in a legal document. And a group of his friends settled in his place: musician Larrance Dopson, journalist Esther Wojcicki, and child actor and Mighty Ducks crypto investor Brock Pierce. All three have since left the board and were replaced by some other organization of Breslow’s acquaintances (one of whom also left).
Over the past year, Activant has argued that Breslow’s moves amounted to a hostile change aimed at replacing the board of directors with Americans who would carry out his bids. The company alleged that Breslow’s new administrators were tasked with “considering, structuring, negotiating, and approving issues such as satisfaction” of repayment of the loan, and accused him of failing in his fiduciary duties for the company while exploiting his budget to enrich himself. In a rebuttal, Breslow said the members presented “new perspectives and deep webs,” and called Activant’s litigation “nothing more than sour grapes. “
In Silicon Valley, Breslow has a warning about the rise and fall of young founders, Forbes reported. After launching Bolt in 2018 as a one-click payment platform, Breslow has attracted some of Wall Street’s biggest investors who have invested $1 billion in the corporate and increased its $11 billion valuation. But now, at age 30, his legacy is tarnished by a series of legal and private battles, a Security and Exchange Commission investigation (which resulted in no enforcement action), several rounds of mass layoffs. at Bolt and his departure as CEO.
Under a plan of arrangement filed this week through Activant, Breslow and three current and former board members, Bolt will cancel 13,397,270 shares of common stock previously held through Breslow, in the amount of $37,378,383. Those same shares were previously reclassified to Bolt in a takeover bid in January and were valued at $2. 79, a higher value than investors ($1. 26) and workers ($0. 63), as Forbes has previously reported. Breslow returned those shares to Bolt to settle the principal and interest on his loan, as well as “certain expenses incurred through Bolt in connection with the repayment. “Forbes reported that Breslow had tried to value the company at several million dollars in expenses, including personal security expenses.
Forbes further reported that distributors were required to release Bolt and its affiliates from a wide variety of claims; In the new agreement, Activant explains that it had opted not to participate in the takeover bid due to this publication, but that it would sell all its shares to the company, valued at $36,494,674.
Breslow will most likely retain control of the board of directors despite writing off millions of its shares, and several sources close to the company told Forbes that the takeover bid is favorable to Breslow by reducing the number of shareholders who own desired shares. Forbes, however, said Breslow was no longer a billionaire. As a component of the agreement, “all compensation, fees, expenses, loan agreements, or credits to or involving Breslow” will also have to be approved through an independent committee “comprised of at least two non-founding members of Bolt’s board of directors. “
Separately, Bolt has been sued lately through a major client, sportswear giant Fanatics, which alleges that the billing company touted its relationships with prospective consumers and investors while breaching its contract with Fanatics, a claim Bolt allegedly disputed, according to The Information. . . And in March, Maju Kuruvilla, who rose to the position of chief executive after Breslow’s departure, left the company and was replaced by Bolt’s head of global sales, Justin Grooms. In court documents, Activant claimed that Kuruvilla was fired from his position through the board of directors. Bolt did not promptly respond to a request for comment.
Breslow has remained tight-lipped about his plans for the future, but he has co-founded several startups since Bolt’s launch, adding Love. com wellness platform, inventory lending platform Prism and his venture capital fund Family, whose investments include male contraceptives. , an “alternative sports league” and a members-only network.