PruVen Capital, a fintech and insurance tech venture fund founded by former Benchmark and Citi ventures VC Ramneek Gupta, has closed a new $378.5 million Fund II to invest in financial services and enterprise-focused startups.
When Mosa Meat served up a first-of-its-kind, lab-grown hamburger in 2013, it cost over $300,000. Eleven years later, around 200 startups worldwide remain hopeful that growing meat from cells, rather than slaughtering animals, will one day be a major portion of our food supply.
Zoe, a nutrition company based in London, is expanding its presence in the United States after raising $15 million in a Series B extension.
It’s not everyday that OpenAI founder Sam Altman teaches your class at Stanford, but that’s the kind of entrepreneurial spirit Lawrence Lin Murata, co-founder and CEO of Slope, tapped into as he and Alice Deng build their B2B payments company.
When Aizada Marat moved from New York to California in 2018 with her husband, KODIF co-founder and CEO Chyngyz Dzhumanazarov, she needed to sort out her immigration status. That’s when everything started going badly.
Wesley Chan is often seen in his signature buffalo hat; however, he may be even more well-known for his ability to spot unicorns.
In the quest to provide the best education for students across the country, legislation is constantly being reformed. All of those new education policies typically help, but are often hard to implement and difficult for parents to understand.
Garry Tan, president and CEO of Y Combinator, told a crowd at The Economic Club of Washington, D.C. this week that “regulation is likely necessary” for artificial intelligence.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is suing SoLo Funds, a fintech company that enables peer-to-peer lending, alleging that the company used “digital dark patterns” to deceive borrowers and illegally took fees while advertising to consumers that there were no fees.
“The CFPB is suing SoLo for using digital trickery to hide interest and fees on its online loans,” CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said in a May 17 press release announcing the suit. “SoLo has had repeated run-ins with state regulators, and we are putting a stop to their fake tipping scheme.”
The CFPB also alleges that the company misrepresented the cost of loans, interfered with the ability of consumers to understand what they were agreeing to; collected on loans they shouldn’t have; and made false threats related to credit reporting. CFPB also stated that SoLo Fund’s business model did not provide safeguards.
“SoLo’s advertisements and loan disclosures tout no-interest loans when, in fact, virtually all loans on the SoLo Platform include a lender ‘tip’ that goes to the lender, a SoLo ‘donation’ that goes to SoLo, or both,” according to the CFPB.
Rodney Williams and Travis Holoway started SoLo Funds in 2018 to provide lending to underserved Americans, especially those who are often targeted by predatory lending practices due to their low- to middle-class status.
The company raised some $13 million in venture-backed funding, according to Crunchbase. TechCrunch profiled the company in 2021 when it raised $10 million in Series A funding. Along the way, SoLo Funds attracted some high-profile investors, including Serena Ventures, founded by tennis legend Serena Williams; Endeavor Catalyst, Alumni Ventures and Techstars.
In 2023, SoLo Funds said it reached 1 million registered users and over 1.3 million downloads.
Meanwhile, this new lawsuit adds to the recent troubles that have plagued the company. Last year, the company settled several lawsuits with entities, including the District of Columbia and the State of California, for alleged predatory lending practices, and the Connecticut Department of Banking regarding a 2022 temporary cease-and-desist order.
Then in December 2023, SoLo Funds was in the news again, this time related to being investigated by the State of Maryland.
Regarding the new CFPB lawsuit, SoLo Funds claims in a statement to TechCrunch, that it was voluntarily working toward a regulatory framework with the CFPB for the last 18 months. It said that on May 16, both entities primarily agreed on a path forward and, said “we were blindsided the next morning with a suit.”
SoLo Funds CEO Travis Holoway said in a statement, that “minority innovators were challenged to create new models to address our communities’ financial inequalities.” And now that the company is doing that, the “regulators seem driven by press releases when they should be motivated by true consumer protection and empowering equitable solutions.”
The CFPB said it is suing to change SoLo Fund’s practices, for refunds to customers and for financial penalties such as disgorgement, damages and possibly additional civil penalty fees. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau aims to “prevent future violations, monetary relief in the form of redress to consumers, disgorgement of ill-gotten gains, and damages, and the imposition of civil money penalties.”
Bolt founder Ryan Breslow has proposed a settlement with investor Activant Capital this week, which could put an end to a lawsuit brought by Activant. The investor accused Breslow of adding $30 million to Bolt’s balance sheet in the form of personal debt and removing board members when they urged Breslow to repay it.
Activant sued Breslow in July 2023, in a Delaware court, on behalf of Steve Sarracino, a former Bolt board member, alleging that Breslow removed him and two other board members when they declined to help Breslow repay the $30 million loan. Sarracino’s suit also alleged that CEO Maju Kuruvilla and three board members appointed afterward did not force Breslow to make loan repayments.
Breslow’s $30 million loan was secured by Bolt, however, Breslow defaulted on the loan, the suit alleged. Instead of canceling shares he owned to repay the sum, Breslow allowed those millions of dollars to be removed from Bolt’s accounts, according to the lawsuit.
At the time, Bolt’s board was composed of Breslow, Maju Kuruvilla (who replaced Breslow as the CEO in January 2022), Brian Reinken of WestCap Management, Arjun Sethi of Tribe Capital Management and Steve Sarracino of Activant.
In March 2023, Breslow removed all of them from the board and appointed people thought to be more sympathetic to his cause, including musician Larrance Dopson, journalist Esther Wojcicki and crypto investor Brock Pierce. All three of them have since left the board and were replaced by other Breslow acquaintances.
Kuruvilla himself was later removed as CEO in March 2024 and replaced with Bolt head of sales Justin Grooms.
At the same time as the Activant lawsuit, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission was looking at Bolt and Breslow related to whether federal securities laws were violated in connection with statements made when Bolt was raising money in 2021.
This stemmed from a letter sent by Reinken and Sethi, who were Series C and B investors, respectively, to Bolt’s general counsel as part of a demand to inspect the company’s records.
The letter alleged that Breslow “misled” investors while fundraising for the company’s $355 million Series E round, valuing the company at $11 billion. The probe against Bolt was later dropped.
Neither Breslow nor an Activant representative responded for comment at the time of publication.
Now according to the settlement plan seen by TechCrunch, Bolt will cancel 13,397,270 common shares previously owned by Breslow, representing $37,378,383. Breslow is essentially giving those shares back to Bolt to resolve the principal loan, expenses and interest.
On the Activant side, the firm said it chose not to participate in a tender offer, and instead, Bolt will buy back 18,247,337 of the Activant shares worth $36,494,674.
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