Apps
Financial Management App Developer Qapital Launching To Challenge Mint.com
Posted 5 minutes ago by Jonathan Shieber (@jshieber)
Qapital, a new financial management app developer based in Europe, is preparing to launch in the U.S. and Sweden as it looks to challenge Mint.com‘s dominance in personal financial management, TechCrunch has learned.
The Stockholm-based company aims to help consumers “live large” by “saving small.”
Backed by a few angel investors, the company’s app differs from most account management software in its ability to actually save money.
Users can set goals to save against — like money for a vacation, or a new car or television, or a limited edition replica of the “one ring.” As they hit their savings or spending targets, money is transferred from their bank accounts into a savings account managed by Qapital’s banking partner.
That’s right, Qapital is an actionable savings app. The money that folks save, or designate for saving, is transferred from an existing bank account into what the company calls a Qapital Savings Account, held by the company’s FDIC-ensured banking partner.
“We’re going after the 20% or 30% of your income that’s spent on crap,” founder and CEO George Friedman tells me. “It’s that huge chunk of your money that you don’t remember spending or don’t care about at the end of the month.”
Qapital has its roots in one of Sweden’s largest brokerage banks, Avansa, which is where Friedman worked before launching the startup.
Friedman had previously held banking jobs in New York at Nomura Securities and counts one of his former executives as a mentor and investor. In all, some 15 angel investors have put money into Qapital, which will begin seeking a $5 million Series A round following its launch in the U.S. and Sweden.
“We’re demoing with full features in a few weeks,” Friedman says. “We’ve been doing account aggregation and save-to-spend. The savings piece, and moving money into our partnering banks, will launch after the summer.”
No comments:
Post a Comment