Mobile Payments Startup Gives Away Money To Spread “Joy”

After pulling in $30 million in funding last year, a mobile payments startup is giving away $20 bills from a vending machine at a Berkeley campus.

Initial media reports have not been kind. Valleywag notes: “Clinkle, a well-funded startup run by Lucas Duplan, the Prince Joffrey of mobile payments, recently revealed its $30 million idea. After rounds of layoffs and many setbacks, young Duplan has bestowed the world with a debit card. Not sold? Well, how about if Clinkle gives you $20 from its Treat Bot vending machine?” and “aside from admitting that the current version of Clinkle is a rip-off of Venmo, another app that lets you share money with friends, the premise isn’t much clearer. Still confused? Maybe Clinkle’s new website can continue to keep it that way.”

The potentially most damning comments seem to be coming from Valleywag employees directly. Business Insider quotes Rob Ryan, Clinkle’s director of design, attempting to explain the process. “It’s a pure black debit card. Use the card and you get treats. Send treats to another member and their next purchase could be free. You can use the app, too. Send money to other members, limit/track your spending and other goodies.” Then we have the killer line: “Sure, it’s Venmo,” Ryan writes on ProductHunt. “But it’s mostly about giving and getting Treats. A campus with Treats flying around is a bundle of surprise and joy.”

“Bundle of surprise and joy.” Just what investors want to hear.

Valleywag painted a sad picture: “After a tumultuous 17 months of layoffs and executive turnover, the Clinkle app has only just launched on select college campuses. This also isn’t the first time Clinkle has tried paying users to use its service. In June, the company paid beta testers $10 when they swiped their card for a fifth time.”