We’re in the money: Moneytribe raises another $250,000

Melbourne-based business Moneytribe has taken its total funding pool to more than half a million dollars after raising a further seed investment of $250,000 from current investors.

Moneytribe is a social marketplace that places consumers into “tribes” based on shared financial products and providers.

This enables consumers to anonymously compare their product, price and feature choices with people similar to them, and see what product offers other people are receiving and buying.

The company is aiming to build a new way for consumers to engage with product providers and brokers on their terms via smartphone devices.

Moneytribe was founded by David Urpani, who co-founded iSelect.com, and Andrew Coates, whose personalisation technology company AgentArts was acquired by Microsoft in 2007.

The company announced yesterday it has raised $250,000 from current investors, taking its total funding pool to more than $500,000 from Melbourne angels, whose names remain undisclosed.

“We’ve got 10 angel investors who have been funding us for the last eight or nine months,” Coates told StartupSmart.

Moneytribe completed its soft-launch phase in July and is planning to launch an updated mobile application in early December. The new funds will go towards this, Coates says.

“What was missing [from the app] was a social aspect… It was a non-social experience,” he says.

As a result, the new release will include a “Make me an offer” feature for health insurance and mortgages, enabling consumers to anonymously request personalised offers that can be shared.

“From next release, any member can start an anonymous time-limited competition for sellers to make them personalised offers,” Coates says.

“Offers made can then be viewed by all other Moneytribe members as well as publicly via our website.”

“The requester is notified when they get a response, but anyone viewing the offers in the app or via our website can respond if they like the look of a seller and their offer.”

“We want to make it easy for people to get some fast, useful feedback on whether they can do better with a different provider or product without the hard sell from salespeople or confusion in exploring lots of different quote and comparison services.”

“And we want to make this process kind of fun.”