Английская Википедия:Clinkle
Шаблон:Short description Шаблон:Infobox company
Clinkle was a mobile payments company founded in 2012. In 2013 they raised $25 million[1] and the product launched to college students on September 24, 2014.[2]
History
Clinkle was founded in 2011 by Lucas Duplan, then a computer science student at Stanford University.[3][4] Duplan had decided to work on mobile payments during a study abroad program in London after his freshman year.[4] Upon returning to Stanford, Duplan received guidance from Mehran Sahami, a professor who taught the university's introductory programming methodology class.[5] Clinkle rented a house in Palo Alto, California using money from Duplan's parents and a summer program through Highland Capital Partners.[6][7] With approximately a dozen students building the app, it ran a beta test at Stanford in which testers could send payments to each other.[4]
Through VMware co-founder Diane Greene, Duplan met Accel partner Jim Breyer, who became interested in the company after discussing it with Stanford professors and graduate students.[3] Breyer became an investor following his first meeting and product demonstration with Duplan and participated in a round of funding for the company.[8] 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 CEO Marc Benioff.[9][10][11][12][13][14] The funding amounted to the largest seed round in Silicon Valley.[15] Shortly after, Duplan moved the 50-person company from Mountain View to San Francisco.[16] In 2016 a photo was leaked of CEO Duplan and Richard Branson burning wads of fake $100 bills.[17]
In October 2013, former Netflix chief financial officer Barry McCarthy became Clinkle's chief operating officer,[18] and two more former Netflix executives later joined as vice presidents.[19] McCarthy left Clinkle after less than 5 months at the company.[20] Near the end of the year, the company laid off a quarter of its employees.[21] 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.[22] Forbes reported in January 2016 that investors were losing patience with the lack of any market product and were requesting a return of funds.[17]
In November 2014 Lucas Duplan was listed on Forbes 30 Under 30,[23] a pick the publication regretted nine years later, placing Duplan on its Hall of Shame, featuring ten picks it wished it could take back.[24][25]
Product
Clinkle released an app for download on Google Play and the iTunes Store. Clinkle first launched on college campuses and targeted merchants near college campuses.[3][26][27] 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.[28][29] Until September 2014, the app had very limited functionality and only allowed users to join a waitlist with a launch date of September 2014.[30]
Before launching, the company had released limited information about its product, despite significant press coverage.Шаблон:Citation needed The product was intended to include a mobile app that served as an online wallet.[30] Wallets would be linked to existing credit cards and bank accounts.[3] A June 2013 report by TechCrunch stated that the app was going to use high-frequency sound to send payments between devices; however, the section was shortly retracted.[5] Clinkle confirmed that the product would not require near field communication, a wireless technology used by Google Wallet and Apple Pay.[3] Clinkle stated that the product would also provide merchants with information about their customers for the purpose of targeted sales promotions.[7]
Despite its initial launch as an alternative payments processing system, it lost its technological edge to new products like Venmo, a peer-to-peer payments app, and later Apple Pay, which achieved what the company had originally set out to do.[17] The company decided to pivot, and launched to the public on September 24, 2014, a new flagship downloadable application aimed at college students.[2]
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. [31]
References
Further reading
External links
Шаблон:Payment service providers
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite news
- ↑ 2,0 2,1 Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ 3,0 3,1 3,2 3,3 3,4 Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ 4,0 4,1 4,2 Шаблон:Cite news
- ↑ 5,0 5,1 Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ 7,0 7,1 Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite news
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite news
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite news
- ↑ 17,0 17,1 17,2 Шаблон:Cite magazine
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite news
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ 30,0 30,1 Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- Английская Википедия
- 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
- Defunct software companies of the United States
- Страницы, где используется шаблон "Навигационная таблица/Телепорт"
- Страницы с телепортом
- Википедия
- Статья из Википедии
- Статья из Английской Википедии