Intuit to swallow Mint for $170 million

Financial software maker Intuit has signed an agreement to acquire personal finance service Mint.com for $170 million.

"With this transaction, Intuit will gain another fast-growing consumer brand and a highly successful Software as a Service (SaaS) offering that helps people save and make money," Intuit CEO Brad Smith said in a statement Monday. "This move will enhance Intuit's position as a leading provider of consumer SaaS offerings that connect customers across desktop, online and mobile."

TechCrunch reported the deal Sunday night, citing unnamed sources.

Mint, a start-up launched two years ago that tracks personal finance data, became a CNET Webware 100 winner in 2008 and again in 2009. It was also the 2007 winner of the TechCrunch50, which kicks off once again Monday in San Francisco.

Mint's features have apparently helped it attract a younger, more diverse demographic than Intuit's Quicken Online. Mint founder and CEO Aaron Patzer told CNET News last year that 40 percent of his company's users are women. He claimed Quicken's demographic was still "85 percent men." Assuming that's true, it would appear that Intuit can significantly expand its base with the Mint acquisition.

When the deal is made final, Mountain View, Calif.-based Mint will become part of Intuit's Consumer Group, which includes both Quicken and TurboTax. Patzer will become general manager of Intuit's Personal Finance group.

Although Mint and Intuit's Quicken Online are direct competitors, Intuit said it plans to maintain both products. According to Intuit, they serve "separate and equally important purposes."

The acquisition is expected to become final in the fourth quarter, pending regulatory review.

[DWdrum]

I knew it was just a matter of time. MINT has really come a long way since there launch a couple years ago. I just started using them and really like it.

Mike
souldistortion.com

[gtiman07]

I prefer Mint.com and iPhone App over quicken.com and their app..

[carmentiger]

let's hope Intuit does not blow it by diluting the amazing executive staff at Mint. The marketing team has done some incredible stuff in the last 2 years. Their head of marketing must be very pleased with their results. Alas the marketing team usually gets the short end of the stick when it comes to praise. Mint would not have been anywhere near it's growth without the team............I think it's Donna Wells who heads the marketing team.........Great job!!!

[BK216]

waaaat I use mint....that's random tho

[Police_States_of_America]

prepare for crippleware

[bonesbautista]

"What's that noise?"

"Oh, that's the flushing of Mac support for Mint going down the toilet..."

[Police_States_of_America]

nah, they'll just cripple the website and offer windows-only software for a premium

[VballJ]

I mean, it makes sense for Intuit to buy them. They're using the Oracle strategy...if you can't beat them, buy them. I seriously hope they don't screw it up those. Mint has seriously changed the way I use money and it's been such a huge help. I'm not ready to try and find a replacement.

[mvelic]

This is so sad... I just started using Mint and really like it. Now I'm guessing that Intuit will gut the app and make it useless...

[logangreer]

I'm sad as well. Mint.com was seriously awesome and had such good potential. Now it will suck. I hate these big companies like Intuit and Adobe who buy out smaller, creative, awesome companies and utterly ruin them.
*cough*Adobe/Macromedia*cough*

That said, doesn't any company have the integrity to say "no" to these offers and build their own brand? Google didn't get to where it is because it was bought by Microsoft or Yahoo. It built its own identity. I miss companies like that.

[Regulator7]

"Sigh" All good things must come to an end. It's too bad, I really liked Mint. I wonder how long it will take for Intuit to mess it all up. After all, if it's going to be an Intuit product, it has to be a POS.

Actually though, I wonder if this will have regulatory problems. With Microsoft abandoning MS Money, Intuit now makes basically the *only* mass-market personal finance manger software. And I think Mint.com is very nearly the #1 online finance manager sites. I wonder if the Feds will have a problem with that.

[cvaldes1831]

Nah, there are others.

I've tried Mint.com, Quicken Online and Yodlee MoneyCenter; they all have their flaws. For me, Quicken Online is useless as they don't support my primary brokerage. Yodless was ugly as hell until their recent beta preview of the new user interface.

I haven't tried Wesabe. I'm sorta burnt out on signing up and configuring personal finance accounts. My ancient desktop Quicken 2006 for Mac is still a more powerful tool.

[NPGMBR]

Exactly what I was thinking. Will be interesting to see what happens.

[cvaldes1831]

It's worth pointing out that Mint.com is currently using Yodlee for its back-end services (i.e., data aggregation).

It's unclear whether or not Mint.com will continue to use Yodlee now that Intuit has acquired them. Quicken Online has its own aggregation service so it's possible that Mint.com might switch data providers at some point and do it all in house.

[DYMongoose]

What a bummer. I love Mint. I used it up until my bank added "enhanced security" that Mint couldn't get around. Fortunately, I can use Intuit's version through my internet banking, but it's still not as good as Mint.

[fidodogbreath]

I've never understood why anyone would give a 3rd party site like Mint their banking and investment account logins. You have no idea who works there and what they can access, how good their security is, how well they secure copies of your data (such as offsite backups), etc.

[t8]

You could say the same thing about your bank.

In the end you have to trust someone and reputation is everything when it comes to the Web.

[cdwilliams1]

I really wanted to like Mint after hearing about it on NPR's Smart Money. It didn't work with my bank though (one of the big 5) or my local credit union where I've had a savings account since I was a kid. It did work with one of my major credit cards but not my smaller merchant store cards. I thought it had a lot of promise but by working as an independent third party without the other institutions cooperation is basically had to mimic a user sitting at the keyboard and mimic their session to retrieve data. Every time something on one of the bank site changes Mint would break for a few days. It's a great idea that I really wanted to like but unless you can get the majority of your banks supported it's just not worthwhile.

Long story short, maybe with Intuit - a major player - behind the company now the banks will start to open up and cooperate. I think some of the bigger banks would have a lot more faith in an established financial company than an internet startup. Here's hoping Intuit gets it right and keeps all the good Mint stuff intact but gets more banks onboard!!!

[Mr. Dee]

Interesting acquisition I would say. I guess its safe to say they own the smb and consumer accounting markets

[paul.saulnier]

Awesome play on words in the headline.

[Oakraidr]

Find me a new Service please. I suspect intuit will start charging for the cool new tools and limit the free version.

[cvaldes1831]

As I mentioned above Yodlee and Wesabe are two other free services. Help yourself.

[StrandsLucia]

You may want to check out www.moneyStrands.com. We are similar to Mint, but we offer manual importing of data (in addition to auto-linking accounts).

[FellowConspirator]

Too bad.

[vcexperts]

Some interesting data regarding Mint's latest financing round:

http://pedatacenter.com/pedc/blog/view/63

[joetesta70]

Mint is awesome. If Intuit screws this up I'm going over there to kick some ass.

[xbryan]

I hope the government gets involved and rejects this. Mint.com was seriously the only alternative to Quicken Now there is nothing to force Intuit to get off their butts and create something new. No question, this spells the end of Mint.com development. Intuit will let it languish for years like they have done with Quicken.

[cvaldes1831]

It's sad that I have to keep repeating myself but there are options to Quicken/Mint. Try Yodlee or Wesabe. Someone from MoneyStrands mentioned their service.

Again, if you did your research (i.e., using a search engine), you would have quickly found out that it wasn't a two-player game.

[Donna_Wells]

Appreciate the congratulations and the complements on our Mint.com service. It's even gratifying to hear how strongly our users don't want us to change...thank you. Please expect that Mint.com stays free, easy-to-use, and constantly improving. The Mint team will ensure that that's the case. And, with their commitment to acquiring our people and our technology, the Intuit folks are saying loud and clear that they want the same thing.