Greg's Corner

Add Plastc’s name to the startup graveyard

Plastc promised its backers a credit card-like device that you could pre-load all your credit and debit cards to it, along with your various discount cards. They promised you would only need your card and it would make your life a utopia of convenience. Check out what the features of Plastc were intended to be in their own YouTube video.

Wow. Doesn’t that look like an amazing device? It’s no wonder they were able to obtain $9 million in funds from pre-orders alone. This doesn’t even take into account they were entering into a market where there were already players who had shipped product. Coin was a company that promised a similar device and even shipped units. Coin left the market after their device couldn’t overcome technical problems that caused its users to have to continue to carry their cards with them, totally negating the purpose of it. Yesterday, Plastc announced that they were declaring bankruptcy, and it seems like they’re taking the $9 million and going home without ever delivering a single unit.

So far Plastc has not given any reason why they’re declaring bankruptcy or what is going to happen to their backers’ money. What could have been a contributing factor to Plastc’s demise was the new chip and pin form of credit and debit cards. Instead of swiping, if your card has one of the new chips you have to insert the card into the machine. Could Plastc have failed to foresee the surprisingly quick adoption of this new technology? Could they even have changed the technology used in their devices to accommodate chip and pin?

With technology developing at an ever-increasing rate, the time between being the next hot thing and the proverbial buggy whip manufacturer is becoming even shorter.