Plynk touted a record €25M Series A, then missed the milestone and froze

An Irish app for chatting one-on-one or in groups and sending money instantly and free inside the chat, with accounts linked to Facebook.

That chat-first free P2P payments — sending money inside messenger chats tied to Facebook accounts — would scale fast enough to hit investor milestones.

€25M Series A announced June 2017, released in tranches tied to metrics

Founded in 2015 by Charles Dowd and Clive Foley, Plynk announced a €25 million Series A in June 2017, billed as the largest ever raised by an Irish software company — more than Stripe ($18M), Instagram ($7M) or Facebook ($12.7M) at Series A. At the time it claimed 6,000 customers.

The €25M was being released in tranches only when Plynk hit certain metrics — user numbers and new territories. It missed one, the second tranche was withheld, and the company slid into a funding crisis. From December 2017 it blamed a 'technical glitch' while quietly stopping new signups; its website still claimed you could open an account in two minutes. Staff went unpaid for months, even as new hires started, and employees left over unpaid bills. In October 2017 the company had promised to create 40 jobs.

By March 2018 Plynk had stopped taking new customers, owed months of unpaid salaries, and was pinning hopes on interim funding that had not arrived and a pivot to a simplified money-market offering.

The headline €25M was tranche-gated on metrics like user numbers and new territories, but the June 2017 announcement gave no hint of those conditions.

When the metric was missed, funding stopped while the company kept hiring — new recruits started work even as long-serving staff went unpaid.

Customers were told a 'technical glitch' had run for weeks while the site still promised accounts 'in two minutes', eroding trust in a payments brand.

The only named investor, Suisse Privée, had no other public investments, leaving promised interim funding perpetually 'coming' but never in the bank.

By the time the pivot was announced, the company had no iOS developer and a depleted staff, making even the recovery plan hard to execute.

A round announced as €25M but payable only on metrics is not €25M: dressing a milestone-gated raise as a record win burns staff and customers first when the metric is missed.

As of March 29, 2018, Plynk was not signing up customers and was not focused on growing the user base, with a new set of goals under negotiation. Departed staff were unlikely to return, though Dowd said the company intended to pay them in full. Prepaid Financial Services stood behind user balances and refunds. Dowd: 'Everyone should feel hard done by... It's a terrible situation to be in when things don't go smoothly.'