Wesabe Joins The Union Square Ventures Portfolio

Somehow Techcrunch figured it out and ran the story this morning. It caught us a bit unprepared, but Brad quickly put together a blog post explaining why and how we made this investment and it's up on the Union Square Ventures weblog now.

I shared my thoughts on Wesabe last month on this blog when I called it Delicious For Money. We think it's a big opportunity and look forward to working with the Wesabe team to make managing everday finances easier.

Comments

[Kristian Hansen]

Fred,

Congrats on your investment with Wesabe.

I find Jason an awesome, enthusiastic gentleman.

Hope it goes well,
Kristian

[Cortland Coleman]

Fred,

Wesabe issued a press release last night that was embargoed until this morning announcing the funding. Arrington accidentally posted it yesterday but deleted it, then resposted it this morning. For more information about it, and a response by Jason in the comments, see my site.

Congrats on the deal and the anniversary!

[Chris Neumann]

A few friends and I were talking about this space over the winter, thinking "why isn't anyone doing quicken, but online". One of the guys had worked at Intuit and said that they'd gone as far as building a product which never launched for fear of cannibalization. We tossed around ideas, and started looking at competition, and then saw Wesabe. That's when we decided to not even bother competing. Then, they got the initial funding a few months ago, and now this. Good thing we didn't even start to run with it. These guys are kicking ass. If Intuit is smart, they should buy them now before it gets too expensive.

[Stephen L. McKay]

Fred,

Congratulations on the investment! When I first heard about Wasabe (via your blog) I had some early reservations due to the security factor, but having looked a little further into what they are doing it seems they have adequately addressed that aspect.

Also want to say Brad’s post was excellent! I am a big fan of the USV blog, and recommend it to any one who is interested in entrepreneurship and the venture capital world (wish you guys posted more often over there)!

Congrats on your anniversary!

[wow powerleveling]

wonderful

it sounds a good news

[RG]

Now that you've added them as a portfolio company, can you focus on allowing automatic balance/item updates for more partners? My yodlee money center account tracks everything from my HSBC checking and savings to my bank of america mastercard to my continental frequent flier miles to my schwab and td ameritrade brokerage accounts... truly a wholistic approach. The UI is total crap though.

If you can make Wesabe into a product that has the capability of at least Yodlee from a data aquisition standpoint I think you will have made my YEAR.

Best of luck and congrats on another great pick up!

[dave mcclure]

congrats fred... once again, we'll be competing in a very exciting new space.

I wish you all the luck in the world... coming in 2nd ;)

- dave mcclure
http://mint.com
http://500hats.typepad.com

[Charlie]

Yeah... somehow... I wonder... Its not like nearly every company you blog about loving eventually becomes a USV investment or anything.

:)

[Vijay]

I know that you might be interested in Wesabe You mentioned Gotham girl (Jaonne) liked it. Reading her blog makes me thing that she was interested :-)

[Jason Knight]

Thanks everyone for the positive feedback. We are thrilled to be working with Brad and Fred

RG, we are hard at work increasing the account types we can import - we will make your YEAR!

[RG]

Jason,

I have a bunch of ideas about what I'd love to see in Wesabe. Happy to share them with you.

You can get my email from Fred if you'd like to discuss.

All the best,
RG

[Alan]

Fred - have you completely switched over from Quicken to Wesabe yet? I was fascinated about two things in your original post on Wesabe 1) you had been on Quicken since 1988 and you actually had all the history on that one PC and 2) that a guy with what I imagine to be relatively complex finances immediately saw Wesabe as a superior alternative for yourself.

I'm getting into Wesabe, still using Yodlee too(I second the previous comment on matching some of the simplicity of Yodlee in uploading), but I've dropped MS Money for good.

[Jeff Clavier]

We knew something was up when you posted your original piece on Wesabe. I could not agree more with the huge opportunity, just made a bet on the other player (Mint). All the best!