Bolt, the one-click checkout solution turned financial super app that has raised nearly $1 billion in venture capital, has laid off a third of its staff and announced a pivot to AI—apparently a last-ditch effort to save the company.
The layoffs come amid reports of financial strain and difficulty paying vendors. Fintech Business Weekly reports that Bolt has struggled to cover even mission-critical necessities, including Amazon Web Services, since the start of the year. The company has also eliminated most of its independent contractors, some of whom have not been paid since January.
The downfall has been swift for the company that announced its super app just a year earlier. The platform was billed as a one-stop solution for digital banking, crypto trading, peer-to-peer payments, and even featured an AI agent capable of shopping, making recommendations, and completing purchases on behalf of users.
Despite the fanfare, the super app has failed to gain traction. Google Play shows only about 5,000 downloads, far below Bolt’s claim of a “network of 80+ million U.S. shoppers.” For context, the banking app MoneyLion has more than 5 million downloads, according to Fintech Business Weekly.
Moving Forward from Merchants
Originally, Bolt built its reputation by offering checkout solutions for merchants, but the company believed that expanding into a consumer-focused super app would drive broader adoption of its services.
“Bolt tried to compete with Shopify’s ShopPay and EWS’ Paze, which offer one-click checkouts,” said Don Apgar, Director of Merchant Payments at Javelin Strategy & Research. “Both ShopPay and Paze are marketed primarily to merchants, adding value by reducing cart abandonment and facilitating guest checkouts. Bolt took a different approach by marketing to consumers, offering a discount shopping plan through their network of merchants. Merchants are enticed to sign up on the premise that Bolt can deliver customers, so it becomes a marketing play, not an operational advantage.”
“At the end of the day, their value prop isn’t compelling enough to consumers and doesn’t resonate with merchants that already have strong brands,” he said. “Bolt has constructed a network of struggling brands trying to attract consumers, while struggling to attract consumers with a network of merchants that doesn’t include any household names.”
Will AI Help?
Bolt’s next move is a pivot to AI, which it hopes will accelerate product development and improve operational efficiency.
“AI may help cut costs and drive efficiency but won’t help a lukewarm value proposition,” said Apgar. “If you’re going in the wrong direction, getting there faster won’t help you much. Unless somebody buys them, Bolt will likely be gone by the end of the year.”
