Mint Mints Some VC
Fresh off a stellar performance at TechCrunch40, Mint has raised $4.7-million from from Shasta Ventures, First Round Capital and a group of individuals, including Ram Shriram, who made a few bucks by being an early investor in Google.
Praised by some as ultra-cool and dismissed by others as just an online version of Quicken, Mint has become one of the Web’s “it” companies so it’s no real surprise it has raised some financing. Some of the money will be spent to pay two new senior executives - Donna Wells, who joins as chief marketing officer, and Aaron Forth, who will become VP of product. Wells comes from Intuit while Forth was with eBay.
If you haven’t heard about Mint, it’s a free personal finance tool that lets you track your bank and credit card accounts. Mint looks at your accounts and spending habits, and then offers recommendations on how you can save money. It’s not something I would personally use but 50,000 users have signed up since the public beta was announced a month ago. Of course, you should be attracting lots of users to a free service with lots buzz, right?
Mint is also a pretty savvy marketing operation given how well CEO Aaron Patzer did at TechCrunch40 (the company won $50K as the best presenting company) and the media coverage it attracted. As well, it appears Mint was pretty aggressive in reaching out to bloggers - including yours truly - to make sure its financing received some solid coverage.
More: TechCrunch has a quote from Patzer on how Ram Shriram got involved in the financing.
October 16th, 2007 at 11:47 am
This space has promise and Mint appears to have the firepower and wherewithal to crack it. However, does it deserve my trust?
They clearly state the importance of security, but give themselves the right to change their policies without notice. They need a stronger promise and must prove themselves. As with you, Mark, I’ll wait to use Mint and similar services.