"Smart" bank card Plastc collected $ 9 million pre-orders and declared bankruptcy

The American start-up Plastc was launched in 2014 and promised to create a universal bank card that could store images of 20 debit and credit cards. Over two years of operation, the company collected 80,000 pre-orders, accumulating about $ 9 million. The deadline for delivery of the final product was constantly postponed, and only a few days ago the company announced bankruptcy and complete curtailment of all activities.
 

None of the pre-ordered buyers will receive a card or a refund. All employees of the start-up are already fired, including online support, so there is no one to answer the questions of angry backers.
 

The reason for the failure in Plastc is the lack of funding. "The functioning Plastc cards were ready and demonstrated to our investors and backers. Capital was necessary for mass production and delivery, "the official website of the project says. Despite this, investors who participated in round A for $ 3.5 million, first postponed the deal in February 2017, and then abandoned it. The team found another investor who promised $ 6.75 million, but he also changed his mind at the last moment.
 

Plastc was not the first "smart card", which could not fulfill the promised. The first project of this kind was Coin, which, although it released working cards in 2015, was absorbed by Fitbit the following year. About the same fate befell another start-up Stratos, which sold the achievements of the Danish CardLab in January this year. Another project, Swyp, despite the fact that it was founded in 2014, is also constantly postponing the deadlines.
 

Recall, recently we wrote about a high-tech juicer Juicero, which makes cold pressed juice from pieces of fruit. It turned out that you can squeeze juice from branded packages for $ 5-8 by hands, without the help of a device priced at $ 400.