Intuit's Mint Acquisition Confirmed

The rumored acquisition of personal finance startup Mint by financial software maker Intuit was confirmed by the companies earlier today. The company was bought in an all-cash transaction amounting to $170 million. The site will continue to operate as usual, but it will be integrated with Intuit's family of products and Mint's founder and CEO will be put in charge of Intuit's personal finance group.

“Joining Intuit enables us to bring our vision of helping consumers understand and do more with their money to millions of Intuit customers,” Aaron Patzer, Mint.com founder and CEO, said. “This is a compelling combination of our innovative product, technology, and user interface design with one of the most trusted brands in software.”

“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,” Brad Smith, Intuit CEO, added. “This move will enhance Intuit’s position as a leading provider of consumer SaaS offerings that connect customers across desktop, online and mobile.”

With the acquisition, the question on everyone's mind was how exactly would Mint.com be integrated with Intuit's existing products and what it meant for the company's own web-based solution, Quicken Online. Intuit now claims that it will keep both products, as they are targeted at different markets and users. Mint.com will become Intuit's main personal-finance offering, while Quicken Online will allow Quicken users to connect to their accounts when they are away from their desktops or using mobile devices.

The transaction is expected to finalize in the fourth quarter and Intuit expects it will affect its non-GAAP diluted earnings by two cents per share and GAAP earnings by three cents per share. Mint launched in 2007 and quickly grew to more than 1.4 million users. The startup was funded in three venture capital rounds amounting to $32 million, making for a nice exit for the investors.