While many are making the mad dash to buy gifts online this holiday season, technical frustrations are bound to build. If you’re tired of re-entering your information over and over again at checkout, San Francisco-based fintech company Bolt is offering up a possible solution.
Bolt’s checkout experience platform connects shoppers with retailers in a unified cross-brand network. The company saves shopper information to enable one-click checkout with any of the merchants that have already signed onto the platform. By speeding up the checkout process Bolt intends to drive loyalty and increase sales for its enterprise clients.
Hundreds of retailers including Forever 21, Badgley Mischka and Milk Makeup use Bolt to manage their online checkout processes. The company plans to extend its services to other big-name brands following its latest fundraise.
On Monday, the company announced that it brought in $75 million in additional funds for its Series C-1. Back in July, the company got things started with $50 million. The latest round, co-led by General Atlantic and Westcap, brings the company’s total Series C earnings to $125 million.
“The one click war has started, but also ended. There will be upstarts and large incumbents who take notice of what we’re doing. But network effects take off fast, and they’re already too late to the game,” Ryan Breslow, CEO of Bolt, said in a blog post.
Bolt has kept busy this year as the company has experienced exponential growth to its business. Bolt processed over $1 billion in retail transactions this year and increased the size of its shopper network by 10x, according to the company.
“2020 will go down as Bolt’s formative year. It is the year where we unlocked the One Click network effect that I’ve been telling everyone about since 2014 when the company was founded in my Stanford dorm room,” Breslow continued. “We said it was going to happen. Now, it’s happening.”
The additional capital will be used to help bring the company’s tech to clothing brands like Brooks Brothers, Aéropostale and Juicy Couture, among others. Bolt is also looking to expand the size of its team and is now hiring for more than 20 open roles based out of its San Francisco headquarters. Several engineering, marketing and financial roles are up for grabs.
Bolt’s network extends to 4.5 million shopper accounts and 250,000 of them are being added every month, according to the company. The company expects to close out 2021 with 30 million shopper accounts total.
“Every shopper who joins our network makes independent retail that much stronger,” Breslow tweeted.
Bolt has raised $215 million in financing to date, according to the company. Activant Capital and Tribe Capital participated in the round, among others.
