Financial Software - Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Mint Crushes The Valley's Buzz
Today Mint.com announced that it would sell to Intuit for $170M. Techcrunch is making a big whoop about the deal and we can't blame them as they can take some credit for Mint success given that Mint launched at TechCrunch50.
But here's the rub: Mint is by Valley standards a super-star, one of the best of the best of startups. And it competes in finance, where, unlike social networks, monetization can be significant. And yet they sold for just $170M. We note 'just' because this startup had raised $32M in three rounds of financing. So investors are really not going to make that make back. Think about all the money losers that investors back. When they have a home run it needs to be a lot bigger than this.
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Seems there is only so much upside in running such a highly invasive consumer service site. Using Mint means you open up your life to the site in a way you don't to even the IRS.
I suspect Intuit understands the space better than most, and is likely better able to properly value the deal.
Posted by: Ron Sheridan at September 15, 2009 12:18 PM
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