 | |
| Company type | Privately held company |
|---|---|
| Industry | Mobile payments |
| Founded | Palo Alto, California, United States (2012 (2012)) |
| Founder | Lucas Duplan[1][2][3][4] |
| Defunct | 2016 |
| Fate | Shut down |
| Headquarters | , |
Key people | Jim Breyer Richard Branson Barry McCarthy |
| Products | Clinkle App Clinkle Card Treats SDK |
Clinkle was amobile payments company founded by Lucas Duplan in 2012. The company shut down in 2016.
Clinkle was founded in 2011 byLucas Duplan, then acomputer science student atStanford University.[5] Duplan had decided to work on mobile payments during astudy abroad program inLondon after his freshman year.[6] Upon returning to Stanford, Duplan received guidance fromMehran Sahami, a professor who taught the university's introductory programming methodology class.[7] Clinkle rented a house inPalo Alto, California, using money from Duplan's parents and a summer program throughHighland Capital Partners.[8][9] With approximately a dozen students building the app, it ran abeta test at Stanford in which testers could send payments to each other.[6]
ThroughVMware co-founderDiane Greene, Duplan metAccel partnerJim Breyer, who became interested in the company after discussing it with Stanford professors and graduate students.[5] Breyer became an investor following his first meeting andproduct demonstration with Duplan and participated in a round of funding for the company.[10] By June 2013, Clinkle had raised $25 million from a broad range of investors, including Greene,Andreessen Horowitz,Intel Capital,Intuit,Peter Thiel,Owen Van Natta, and Salesforce CEOMarc Benioff.[11][12][13][14][15][16] The funding amounted to the largest seed round inSilicon Valley.[17] Shortly after, Duplan moved the 50-person company from Mountain View toSan Francisco.[18]
By the end of 2013, they had raised $25 million.[19]
In October 2013, formerNetflixchief financial officer Barry McCarthy became Clinkle'schief operating officer,[20] and two more former Netflix executives later joined asvice presidents.[21] In December 2013, the company laid off a quarter of its employees.[22] McCarthy left Clinkle in March 2014, after less than 5 months at the company.[23] The product launched to college students on September 24, 2014.[24]
In November 2014 Lucas Duplan was listed onForbes 30 Under 30,[25] a pick the publication regretted nine years later, placing Duplan on its Hall of Shame, featuring ten picks it wished it could take back.[26][27]
In 2015, seven core employees quit and the remaining team was believed to be mostly consultants providing support and no more than 12, down from 70 several years ago.[28]Forbes reported in January 2016 that investors were losing patience with the lack of any market product and were requesting a return of funds.[29]
In January 2016, a photo was leaked of CEO Duplan andRichard Branson burning wads of fake $100 bills to celebrate the announcement that Branson had invested in the company and would become an advisor to Duplan. Forbes reported that the purpose of the stunt was to celebrate the idea of paper money becoming "obsolete".[29]
As of May 2016, the company had shut down.[30]
Clinkle released an app for download onGoogle Play and theiTunes Store. Clinkle first launched on college campuses and targeted merchants near college campuses.[5][31][32] Clinkle announced on September 26, 2013, that after two months of opening their college waitlists, over 100,000 students had signed up despite no clear product description.[33][34] Until September 2014, the app had very limited functionality and only allowed users to join a waitlist with a launch date of that month and year.[35]
Before launching, the company had released limited information about its product, despite significant press coverage.[citation needed] The product was intended to include a mobile app that served as anonline wallet.[35] Wallets would be linked to existing credit cards and bank accounts.[5] A June 2013 report byTechCrunch stated that the app was going to use high-frequency sound to send payments between devices; however, the section was shortly retracted.[7] Clinkle confirmed that the product would not requirenear field communication, a wireless technology used byGoogle Wallet andApple Pay.[5] Clinkle stated that the product would also provide merchants with information about their customers for the purpose of targetedsales promotions.[9]
Despite its initial launch as an alternative payments processing system, it lost its technological edge to new products likeVenmo, a peer-to-peer payments app, and laterApple Pay, which achieved what the company had originally set out to do.[29] The company decided topivot, and launched to the public on September 24, 2014, a new flagship downloadable application aimed at college students.[24]
The launch debuted aClinkle Card that allowed users to earn rewards for paying at stores and online. After every seventh payment, Clinkle card users were awarded a "Treat" to send to a friend, which had a chance of earning the recipient a free purchase.[36]
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