Mint.com valued at $170 Million by Intuit
Mint.com is a site that helps individuals manage their finances online. If offers free solutions to online banking and managing finances.
On Sept. 14, Intuit (INTU) said it will pay $170 million in cash for Mint.com. Intuit needs Mint to revive the fortunes of its online presense.
The acquisition follows the criticism to Inuit a year ago following the leak of a threatening letter from Intuit’s legal department to Mint.com. Inuit was suspicious of the impressive pace of growth of its by then two-years competitor.
Consolidation in the industry of software of personal finance
Intuit’s launched a online solution, Quicken Online, last year. Although Microsoft discontinued its PC personal finance software, Money, Quicken proved to be a slow starter. In its turn Mint.com, launched one year earlier, concept was inspired by Inuit’s unfriendly data-entry. Mint attracted 1.5 million users since its launch two years ago with its simple-to-use design.
Mint analyzes users’ finances, spending habits, and demographic information and redirects its customers to partners among credit-card issuers, insurance providers, and other financial-services companies.
Diverse fortunes of other Mint’s stakeholders
The former owner of the domain Mint.com, Hite Capital, got some stock in the Mint Inc when they sold the domain to the company. On the other hand, the core technology was licensed from Yodlee, which made around $4 million off of Mint from license fees. Yodlee did not have equity in Mint, so they didn’t make anything from the acquisition.