Is Payments Startup Clinkle Facing A Big Employee Wrinkle?

Clinkle, a mobile payments startup company, seems to be losing its last shot at glory following long-lasting internal troubles, TechCrunch reports. The startup just lost seven more employees, making them the most recent on a long list of employees who have departed since the company was founded four years ago. They left behind any hope of gaining from a possible sale to a U.S. tech giant like Apple, which had been in discussion with the startup in February 2015. Google was also rumored to be interested.

The reason for such a tragic ending? The employees were allegedly fed up with Clinkle’s CEO, 24-year-old Lucas Duplan. The kiss of death seems to have been the firing of Clinkle’s CFO, former PayPal senior director of finance Mike Liberatore, and its VP of engineering, former PayPal engineering director Hank Pham.

After raising $30 million, it seemed to be the next-big-thing in the mobile payments industry, but now its future is unclear. Since its founding, the San Francisco-based startup has been delaying the launch of its mobile game-payment system following multiple layoffs and the exodus of talented executives. Because Clinkle had secured its funding as convertible debt, TechCrunch reports, Duplan kept firm control of the company as Clinkle didn’t need to allow an investor on its board of directors.

In September 2014, against all odds, the app rose from being in “stealth” mode to being tested on University campuses in the U.S. The reviews, according to TechCrunch’s investigations, were even positive. Clinkle, which is based on an ultrasound mobile payments system, allowed a user to send money to other Clinkle users for free from the user’s bank account. The attraction was that it turned payments into a game. Every seventh purchase, a user could earn a “Treat” via their Clinkle debit card (which generated interchange fees) which could then be sent to friends. Users could potentially get a full refund to their next purchase of up to $25.

The problem is that today competition is getting fiercer: Apple Pay is launched, partly eBay-owned Venmo has grown and Snapcash – Snapchat and Square’s new baby – is also up and running. In this context, and with this new exodus of precious talent, it could very well be the beginning of the end for Clinkle.