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Financial Software - Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Mint Crushes The Valley's Buzz

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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.


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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