Bolt, Cameo and the Dangers of Having Too Much Money Too Soon

Talk about shades of “Succession.” Investor Activant Ventures, a shareholder in e-commerce software firm Bolt, made some extraordinary allegations in a lawsuit filed today against Bolt co-founder Ryan Breslow—which The Information’s Erin Woo scooped here. Most stunning was that Breslow, in a move reminiscent of Logan Roy, last spring removed three of Bolt’s five directors who wouldn’t do his bidding regarding a $30 million personal loan—guaranteed by the company—that he had defaulted on. Breslow favored “his own personal financial interests” over those of other shareholders, the lawsuit alleges.

Erin’s story has a lot more details, including allegations from other Bolt shareholders who’ve written to the company asking for access to its records as they investigate suspected wrongdoing, not to mention the tantalizing involvement of the Securities and Exchange Commission. We haven’t heard Breslow’s side of the story, of course—he declined to comment on the allegations. But the picture that emerges is of a 20-something founder who got access to a lot of money without proper guardrails in place. It’s a familiar story in startup land, for sure—how many of these have we read about in the past year or so? What’s notable, in this case, is that venture capitalists are taking aggressive action in response. Of course, there’s no guarantee it’ll make them more cautious about funding the next near-teenage guy who comes along with what seems like a sort-of-smart business idea.