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Bolt's founder and ex-CEO wants to return to the driver's seat — and he's asking for a hefty payday to come back.
Ryan Breslow, who founded e-commerce software startup Bolt a decade ago, proposed a deal to investors this week, The Information and Eric Newcomer reported Tuesday.
The terms of the funding round were highly unusual, including a $2 million bonus for returning and $1 million in back pay for the two years he was away from the company, the outlets reported, citing a private equity partner who was involved in the deal. The partner has since said that his firm is no longer involved.
Breslow left the company in early 2022 because of conflicts with investors. The 30-year-old entrepreneur's career has been marked by controversy, including lawsuits, a fight with an early investor, and a public spat with competitor Stripe and Y Combinator.
Bolt's interim CEO Justin Grooms wrote in a letter to investors reviewed by The Information that the company was raising $450 million in a Series F round that would value Bolt at over $14 billion. According to Newcomer, Bolt's annualized run-rate revenue was $28 million, and its gross profit was $7 million.
The deal comes with several other eyebrow-raising clauses that would further benefit Breslow, reported Newcomer and The Information:
Bolt's investors were also told that they would need to chip in more money for this funding round. If they fail to do so, Bolt would buy most of them out for one cent a share, a particularly aggressive "pay-to-play" move in the startup world, reported Newcomer.
The proposal requires approval from an investor majority, and shareholders have from late Monday to Wednesday to decide, reported The Information.
Bolt's prior investors include BlackRock, Sequoia Capital, Founders Fund, and Intuit, per PitchBook.
Neither Bolt nor Breslow immediately responded to Business Insider's requests for comment, sent outside standard business hours.