BillShrink, a startup that aims to help users save money across a variety of vertical markets, has closed an $8 million Series B funding round led by Trinity Ventures and Bessemer Venture Partners. The round brings BillShrink’s total funding to around $9 million, after a $1 million Series A round last year.
As part of the deal Trinity’s Gus Tai will join BillShrink’s board of directors, which also includes David Cowan (founder of VeriSign) and Matt Coffin (founder of LowerMyBills). Cowan recently launched Bessemer-incubated startup MashLogic.
BillShrink originally launched in April as a service for saving costs on mobile phone bills. In September the site expanded to helping users identify their ideal credit card. BillShrink says it will use the new funding to continue expanding into new verticals. Despite the woes facing the startup world as a whole, BillShrink seems to be positioning itself well – in the current economic climate the company shouldn’t have any problem finding users looking to save some cash.
Same same, there doesn’t seem to be a marked difference between Billshrink and other comparison sites like money supermarket.
I guess the consumer will decide but this is becoming a very cluttered space.
There does seem to be difference in that billshrink attempts to narrow down the choices for you better, whether its importing your phone bill to analyze best plan or answering spending question to find best suited CC. It beats looking at a long list of offerings on comparison sites.
Of course, all of that is moot if the personalized recommendation isn’t accurate or biased towards sponsors.
If billshrink can establish itself as the place to go for fast, accurate, and objective recommendations on financial products… then it has the potentials to do very well.
Still, James has a point that at the end, the consumer will decide whats right for them.
Nice, this site only supports $US. It’s like buying from Amazon in 1999.
http://luxuryproblems.com
Good point Cap, accuracy is key.
To my earlier point gocompare.com has been offering a personalised 5 star rating on the credit card, car insurance etc etc that is right for you, for a while now.
If Billshrink’s rev model is based on vendors paying for a preferred ranking then my personal opinion is it should be taken with a pinch of salt.
Oh I wasnt saying their rev model is on preferred ranking, just saying in general if sites like these work that way then bring on the salt.
Both those sites you’ve listed are UK based though, and I haven’t found too many sites like these for US consumers, so maybe the space isn’t too crowded yet – at least in the states anyway.
Congrats Peter! Great timing
I personally don’t think that business model is worth 9 million at all. Does anybody what their current revenue is?!
I don’t find the site very useful. I decided to check for cheaper wireless phone plan. I put in my usage and costs – $80 and 600 minutes. The results recommended a Varizon plan for $69.95. Sweet, but only one problem – it is the phone plan I have now. The $80 is after the taxes.
The site could be a very useful tool IF it starts factoring in local, municipal, metropolitan, state and federal taxes. In addition to that you have to add the stupid recovery fees that the service providers pass along to their customers, even though by law they are not supposed to.
Applying slick looking ajax to a traditional comparison model doesn’t make it any better than what’s out there, but with an extra funding I’m sure you can improve the intelligence of the recommendation algorithm. I’ll say it’s a good start.
Honestly what where these VC’s thinking??
I need integration into my daily workflow — financial software, yahoo finance, etc. As a stand-alone point solution I don’t see myself frequenting the site.
-ariel
I don’t find this site useful whatsoever. How the heck did it get $8M in funding? Ridiculous!
Thousands of wireless subscribers are saving an average of 22 percent off their plans by locating and eliminating unnecessary charges when their cell bills are analyzed through http://www.fixmycellbill.com by a company that I work for called Validas. When you upload your bill, you find out for free if you’re one of the eight in ten wireless customers paying more than you need to and, if so, by how much money your carrier is overcharging you. If you choose, Validas provides an additional highly detailed and personalized adjustment report that, for five bucks, is emailed to your wireless provider in industry specific format in order to implement Validas’s cash saving changes to your plan. If Validas can save you more than $5 on your bill (the average customer currently saves $482 annually through Validas), then this obviously provides a cost effective remedy for reducing cellular expenses.
Validas is becoming known as the preeminent advocate for the wireless consumer. Check out a feature about Validas on The Big Idea with CNBC’s Donny Deutsch at http://www.cnbc...om/id/22782456/. Validas has also been profiled in the New York Times and Business Week.
Happy holidays, and good luck to everyone reading on trimming down wireless expenses in this tough economy.
Dylan