Bolt Payments

Bolt Financial Inc. operates a fintech platform designed to streamline the e-commerce checkout process for online retailers. The company was founded in 2014 by Stanford University students Ryan Breslow and Eric Feldman, who initially aimed to create a Bitcoin wallet before shifting focus to e-commerce payments. Their objective was to provide independent retailers with a checkout experience comparable to major players like Amazon. Breslow, who taught himself to code in middle school, dropped out of Stanford to launch the company from his dorm room. Feldman left the company in 2017.

The core of Bolt's offering is its Checkout Experience Platform, an integrated system that combines a payment gateway, payment processing, a shopping cart, and fraud detection into a single product. This addresses the common issue of shopping cart abandonment by simplifying the checkout flow for consumers. The platform is designed for both small to medium-sized businesses and enterprise-level e-commerce retailers. For shoppers, Bolt creates a network where their information can be saved securely, enabling one-click checkouts across any merchant using Bolt's technology. This is achieved through features like payment tokenization, where sensitive credit card details are replaced with secure, randomly generated tokens.

Bolt's business model generates revenue through quote-based pricing that considers factors like sales volume and fraud risk. The company offers two main payment models: an all-in-one solution called Bolt Payments, where Bolt manages the entire payment stack, and a payment gateway model where merchants can use their existing third-party payment service providers. A significant aspect of its service is its fraud protection, which combines machine learning with a human review team and offers 100% coverage for fraud-related chargeback costs. Merchants gain access to a centralized dashboard for tracking transaction data, customer behavior, and managing orders. The platform integrates with major e-commerce systems like Shopify and Woocommerce and supports over 30 currencies.

Keywords: one-click checkout, e-commerce payments, payment gateway, fraud detection, online retailers, shopping cart abandonment, payment processing, fintech, conversion optimization, checkout platform, merchant services, PCI compliance, payment tokenization, mobile commerce, Ryan Breslow, subscription billing, chargeback management, secure payments, retail technology, cross-border payments