Alumni News — Week of June 1, 2010

Here are the news headlines we posted this week on Twitter (follow our feed here).

ThreatMetrix partners with Offerpal Media to stop fraud — The ThreatMetrix data will give Offerpal additional abilities to identify potentially fraudulent user transactions. http://bit.ly/cerWUY

Peter Pham to leave BillShrink — Schwark Satyavolu will re-assume the CEO Position. Pham will be leaving BillShrink to join Trinity Ventures as an Entrepreneur in Residence. http://bit.ly/FINOVATE611

iBearSoft releases a video demo of the iBearMoney for iPad — Money for iPad is a top-selling app in the paid personal finance category in the American iTunes app store. http://bit.ly/FINOVATE613

Lending Club hits $10 mil in monthly originations for first time — Congratulations to Lending Club on their continued growth! http://bit.ly/Finovate621

mFoundry featured in NY Times — (6/1/10 p.B1) Article on card-based loyalty programs moving to mobile. http://nyti.ms/cardloyalty

Zecco’s CEO Michael Raneri has been named a winner of IDG’s 2010 InfoWorld CTO 25 Award — Zecco is an online brokerage which offers free stock trades and low-cost options trades. http://bit.ly/FINOVATE621

Alpha Clone investment account service has launched — A clone is a portfolio of stocks based on the stock idea of one or more fund managers. http://bit.ly/aQcBgu

Bling Nation, mobile payments provider, hires Shan Mehta to lead strategic alliances — Mehta will also be responsible for maintaining and expanding exiting relationships with service partners. http://bit.ly/Finovate631

MoneyStrands adds cash tracking to application — Cash tracking is now available for MoneyStrands via Web and mobile app. http://bit.ly/finovate641

BillShrink.com Adds BillShrink Business and Shows Substantial Growth

A year after first appearing at FinovateStartup (Finovate 2009 video here; FinovateStartup 2009 video here.) , BillShrink.com has doubled in size, now with 22 employees, and more than 450,000 unique visitors per month (see chart below).

 In January 2010, it launched a parallel service for small businesses, to compare business credit cards. And soon it will expand to certificates of deposit and corporate wireless plans.
BillShrink believes that its highly personalized vertical searches is increasingly desired by consumers and isn’t likely to be replicated by others. The site is sticky, because users can save their search info and preferences and BillShrink will continue looking for a better deal. When one is found, users receive an email, which brings them back to the site.

Unlike traditional search, BillShrink’s value-add is calculations based on actual user data. For example, the it considers the user’s actual gas mileage and location and then calculates the optimal place to fill the tank. Likewise, BillShrink can compare reward credit cards based on your actual charging history and rewards preferences.
The company has not needed to raise any additional capital this year as it continues to roll out a new vertical every few months. BillShrink is targeting all “high wallet personal finance categories” according to Peter Pham, CEO. 

The next vertical rolls out May 26, but Pham was tight-lipped as to what it would be, other than to hint that it would be in the consumer realm.
Pham cites the company’s belief that users search expectations have grown. He believes that they want something better than Google’s mish-mash of results. BillShrink meets those expectations by providing an apples-to-apples comparison tailored precisely to the user, and it doesn’t feel like a random advertisement.

BillShrink.com page for business

Traffic chart from Compete.com