The archive · Money & Fintech · Financial decision · 2010
inDinero bets small businesses want a Mint of their own; Jessica Mah, 20, raises $1M+ seed
YC S10's inDinero aimed to be 'the Mint for small businesses'; in September 2010 founder Jessica Mah, 20, was closing a $1–1.5M seed round.
inDinero
What the business is
inDinero is a simple online finance-management tool for small businesses — 'the Mint for small businesses' — built by Jessica Mah as part of Y Combinator's 2010 class.
Starting capital：Seed round of $1–1.5 million, one week from closing as of 2010-09-01; confirmed investors included 500 Startups' Dave McClure, Microsoft's Fritz Lanman and YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim, with three spots reserved for backers like SV Angel.
How it started
Jessica Mah founded her first startup at 13, entered Berkeley's computer science program at 15 and started internshipIN.com while there. With inDinero, part of Y Combinator's 2010 class, she aimed to build simple online finance management for small businesses — in TechCrunch's framing, 'the Mint for small businesses.'
What happened
By late August 2010 the seed round was one week from closing at between $1 million and $1.5 million. TechCrunch confirmed investors including Dave McClure's 500 Startups, Microsoft's Fritz Lanman and YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim, with three slots still reserved for 'valley VIPs' like SV Angel. The outlet had heard reports that Mah had to turn investors away, and she promised more 'juicy details' about the story behind the funding were yet to come; the article linked a video of her explaining the product's usefulness and simplicity.
No ending yet — it is still running.
Background
Jessica Mah was already a serial founder at 20: she started her first company at 13, entered Berkeley's computer science program at 15, and launched internshipIN.com there. With inDinero, part of Y Combinator's 2010 class, she set out to build simple online finance management for small businesses — 'the Mint for small businesses,' as TechCrunch described it.
On 2010-09-01 TechCrunch confirmed that the round was one week from closing at between $1 million and $1.5 million. Confirmed investors included Dave McClure's 500 Startups, Microsoft's Fritz Lanman and YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim, with three spots still reserved for backers like SV Angel; the outlet reported Mah had to turn some investors away.
The story ran on the novelty of the founder as much as the product: TechCrunch called her 'perhaps the closest we've got to a female Mark Zuckerberg' and noted she was raising over a million at twenty. Mah promised more details on the funding story, and the report reached Hacker News the next day with 153 points and 54 comments.
What has to be true
- 'The Mint for small businesses' gave press and readers an instant frame, so the round travelled from TechCrunch to Hacker News without the product having proven itself.
- The founder's own arc — first startup at 13, Berkeley CS at 15, internshipIN.com — made the company newsworthy before its metrics were.
- Demand-side signals like reports that Mah turned investors away indicated the round had momentum beyond the named angels.
- Y Combinator's S10 class and backers like 500 Startups, Fritz Lanman and Jawed Karim gave the seed round credibility with the startup audience that discussed it.
What can be applied
A clear analog — 'the Mint for small businesses' — plus a founder whose story is the news gave an early-stage round reach before the product had proven itself; framing is part of fundraising.
Aftermath
As of 2010-09-01 inDinero was one week from closing its seed round of $1–1.5 million, with investors including 500 Startups, Fritz Lanman and Jawed Karim confirmed and three slots still reserved for backers like SV Angel. The company had not announced a public product launch in the article; this record covers the founding story and the funding event as reported at the time.
Sources
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