Clinkle Tabs McCarthy as COO (Oct. 22, 2013)
Payments startup Clinkle Corp. already has landed some big name investors—and now the San Francisco-based company is filling out its executive team, announcing that former Netflix CFO Barry McCarthy will join Clinkle as COO. Established in 2011 by 22-year old Stanford grad Lucas Duplan, the company has been developing a payment app that reportedly will emphasize social media and enable users to transfer funds between individuals and groups. Full rollout of the platform is set for sometime next year, but the company says it already has lined up more than 100,000 college students on its wait lists. Clinkle also has turned industry heads by landing more than $25 million worth of investment from Accel Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, Intel Capital, Intuit Inc. and Sir Richard Branson, among others.
New Clinkle COO McCarthy served as CFO of Netflix from 1999 to 2010, during which time he helped grow the mail-order DVD service into a streaming video behemoth with more than 30 million subscribers and one-third of all U.S. Internet traffic during peak streaming hours. He also has served on the boards of a number of tech companies, including streaming music service Pandora and online ticketing platform Eventbrite. “Clinkle is one of those rare Netflix-like opportunities, only bigger,” said McCarthy. “Lucas has a grand vision for broad–scale disruption of a huge consumer market enabled by growth in mobile devices and brilliant software innovation. That’s why Clinkle has been funded by some of the smartest money in Silicon Valley and why I signed on to be Lucas’ partner.”
