Clinkle was a
mobile payment
A mobile payment, also referred to as mobile money, mobile money transfer and mobile wallet, is any of various payment processing services operated under financial regulations and performed from or via a mobile device, as the cardinal class of ...
s company founded in 2012. In 2013 they raised $25 million and the product launched to college students on September 24, 2014.
History
Clinkle was founded in 2011 by Lucas Duplan, then a
computer science
Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includin ...
student at
Stanford University.
Duplan had decided to work on mobile payments during a
study abroad
International students, or foreign students, are students who undertake all or part of their tertiary education in a country other than their own and move to that country for the purpose of studying.
In 2019, there were over 6 million internat ...
program in
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
after his freshman year.
Upon returning to Stanford, Duplan received guidance from
Mehran Sahami
Mehran Sahami is an Iranian-born American computer scientist, engineer, and professor. He is the James and Ellenor Chesebrough Professor in the School of Engineering, and Professor (Teaching) and Associate Chair for Education in the Computer Scien ...
, a professor who taught the university's introductory programming methodology class.
Clinkle rented a house in
Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto.
The city was ...
using money from Duplan's parents and a summer program through
Highland Capital Partners
Highland Capital Partners is a global venture capital firm with offices in Boston, Silicon Valley, and San Francisco. Highland has raised over $4 billion in committed capital and invested in more than 280 companies, with 47 IPOs and 134 Acquisi ...
.
With approximately a dozen students building the app, it ran a
beta test
A software release life cycle is the sum of the stages of development and maturity for a piece of computer software ranging from its initial development to its eventual release, and including updated versions of the released version to help impro ...
at Stanford in which testers could send payments to each other.
Through
VMware
VMware, Inc. is an American cloud computing and virtualization technology company with headquarters in Palo Alto, California. VMware was the first commercially successful company to virtualize the x86 architecture.
VMware's desktop software ru ...
co-founder
Diane Greene
Diane B. Greene (born June 9, 1955) is an American technology entrepreneur and executive. Greene started her career as a naval architect before transitioning to the tech industry, where she was a founder and CEO of VMware from 1998 until 2008. ...
, Duplan met
Accel partner
Jim Breyer
James W. Breyer (born July 26, 1961) is an American venture capitalist, founder and chief executive officer of Breyer Capital, an investment and venture philanthropy firm, and a former managing partner at Accel Partners, a venture capital firm. B ...
, who became interested in the company after discussing it with Stanford professors and graduate students.
Breyer became an investor following his first meeting and
product demonstration In marketing, a product demonstration (or ''"demo"'' for short) is a promotion where a product is demonstrated to potential customers. The goal is to introduce customers to the product in hopes of getting them to purchase that item.
Products offere ...
with Duplan and participated in a round of funding for the company. By June 2013, Clinkle had raised $25 million from a broad range of investors, including Greene,
Andreessen Horowitz
Andreessen Horowitz (also called a16z, legal name AH Capital Management, LLC) is a private American venture capital firm, founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. The company is headquartered in Menlo Park, California.
Andreessen H ...
,
Intel Capital
Intel Capital is a division of Intel Corporation, set up to manage corporate venture capital, global investment, mergers and acquisitions. Intel Capital makes equity investments in a range of technology startups and companies offering hardware, ...
,
Intuit
Intuit Inc. is an American business software company that specializes in financial software. The company is headquartered in Mountain View, California, and the CEO is Sasan Goodarzi. Intuit's products include the tax preparation application Tu ...
,
Peter Thiel
Peter Andreas Thiel (; born 11 October 1967) is a German-American billionaire entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and political activist. A co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies, and Founders Fund, he was the first outside investor in Fac ...
,
Owen Van Natta
Owen Thomas Van Natta (born November 12, 1969) is an American businessman who has found success in a variety of tech spaces, including e-tail, social networking, music streaming, gaming, finance and investment. He currently serves as Founder of ...
, and Salesforce CEO
Marc Benioff
Marc Russell Benioff (born September 25, 1964) is an American internet entrepreneur and philanthropist. He is the co-founder, chairman and CEO of Salesforce, an enterprise cloud computing company. In September 2018, Benioff acquired ''Time''.
...
.
The funding amounted to the largest seed round in
Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo Count ...
. Shortly after, Duplan moved the 50-person company from Mountain View to
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
. In 2016 a photo was leaked of CEO Duplan and Richard Branson burning wads of fake $100 bills.
In October 2013, former
Netflix
Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a ...
chief financial officer Barry McCarthy became Clinkle's
chief operating officer
A chief operating officer or chief operations officer, also called a COO, is one of the highest-ranking executive positions in an organization, composing part of the " C-suite". The COO is usually the second-in-command at the firm, especially if t ...
, and two more former Netflix executives later joined as
vice president
A vice president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vice president is o ...
s. McCarthy left Clinkle after less than 5 months at the company. Near the end of the year, the company laid off a quarter of its employees. 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. ''Forbes'' reported in January 2016 that investors were losing patience with the lack of any market product and were requesting a return of funds.
Product
Clinkle released an app for download on
Google Play
Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store and formerly the Android Market, is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certified devices running on the Android (operating sys ...
and the
iTunes Store
The iTunes Store is a digital media store operated by Apple Inc. It opened on April 28, 2003, as a result of Steve Jobs' push to open a digital marketplace for music. As of April 2020, iTunes offered 60 million songs, 2.2 million apps, 25,00 ...
. Clinkle first launched on college campuses and targeted merchants near college campuses.
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.
Until September 2014, the app had very limited functionality and only allowed users to join a waitlist with a launch date of September 2014.
Before launching, the company had released limited information about its product, despite significant press coverage. The product was intended to include a mobile app that served as an
online wallet
An online wallet is a software or web service that allows users to store and control their online shopping information, such as logins, passwords, shipping address and credit card details. It also provides a method for consumers to purchase produ ...
.
Wallets would be linked to existing credit cards and bank accounts.
A June 2013 report by
TechCrunch
TechCrunch is an American online newspaper focusing on high tech and startup companies. It was founded in June 2005 by Archimedes Ventures, led by partners Michael Arrington and Keith Teare.
In 2010, AOL acquired the company for approximat ...
stated that the app was going to use high-frequency sound to send payments between devices; however, the section was shortly retracted.
Clinkle confirmed that the product would not require
near field communication
Near-field communication (NFC) is a set of communication protocols that enables communication between two electronic devices over a distance of 4 cm (1 in) or less. NFC offers a low-speed connection through a simple setup that can be ...
, a wireless technology used by
Google Wallet
Google Wallet (or simply Wallet) is a digital wallet platform developed by Google. It is available for the Android, Wear OS, and Fitbit OS operating systems, and was announced on May 11, 2022, at the 2022 Google I/O keynote. It began rolli ...
and
Apple Pay
Apple Pay is a mobile payment service by Apple Inc. that allows users to make payments in person, in iOS apps, and on the web. It is supported on these Apple devices: iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad, and Mac. It digitizes and can replace a c ...
.
Clinkle stated that the product would also provide merchants with information about their customers for the purpose of targeted
sales promotion
Sales promotion is one of the elements of the promotional mix. The primary elements in the promotional mix are advertising, personal selling, direct marketing and publicity/public relations. Sales promotion uses both media and non-media market ...
s.
Despite its initial launch as an alternative payments processing system, it lost its technological edge to new products like
Venmo
Venmo is an American mobile payment service founded in 2009 and owned by PayPal since 2013. Venmo was aimed at friends and family who wish to split bills, e.g. for movies, dinner, rent, or event tickets etc. Account holders can transfer funds t ...
, a peer-to-peer payments app, and later
Apple Pay
Apple Pay is a mobile payment service by Apple Inc. that allows users to make payments in person, in iOS apps, and on the web. It is supported on these Apple devices: iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad, and Mac. It digitizes and can replace a c ...
, which achieved what the company had originally set out to do.
The company decided to
pivot
Pivot may refer to:
*Pivot, the point of rotation in a lever system
*More generally, the center point of any rotational system
*Pivot joint, a kind of joint between bones in the body
*Pivot turn, a dance move
Companies
*Incitec Pivot, an Austra ...
, and launched to the public on September 24, 2014, a new flagship downloadable application aimed at college students.
The launch debuted a ''Clinkle 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.
References
Further reading
''Business Insider''TechCrunch
External links
*
{{Payment service providers
2011 establishments in California
Companies based in San Francisco
Online financial services companies of the United States
Payment service providers
Privately held companies of the United States
Software companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area
Technology companies established in 2011
Software companies of the United States