Personal Capital helps sort your complex finances

The project of former Intuit and PayPal CEO Bill Harris has already raised $25M

There’s a new personal finance service in town, but it’s not like the other sites you’re used to.  Personal Capital, the new personal finance project of former Intuit and PayPal CEO Bill Harris, which just emerged from beta today, resembles a Mint or Pageonce on the outset, but it bears a couple of striking differences.  For one thing, Personal Capital is not just a piece of software designed for financial organization.  It's actually a financial institution, which means it's not designed to compete with Mint.com, but with a company like Schwab.  You can actually move money with Personal Capital, such as making transfers or payments (bill pay is not available yet, but Harris says it will be soon).

Secondly, the service isn't built just for budgeting and getting out of debt.  It's designed for users with complex financial lives who need to go beyond seeing how much they're spending on gas each month (though Personal Capital allows them to do that, too) to see how their assets are allocated, how much they're paying in mutual fund fees every year, and so on.

For example, a user might want to see how all of her investments are spread out.  Personal Capital will provide a comprehensive breakdown of her allocations and compare them with a baseline to give her a better idea of how much she needs to diversify.  She can also get a further breakdown of each category to see her individual assets.

Bill Harris sat down with me for an interview in which he took Personal Capital for a test drive.  As you might have noticed, the service is not for those with simple financial lives: a checking account, a savings account, and a monthly budget.  It’s for users with a higher net worth and more complex finances—it’s for those users who need to keep track of both their monthly spending habits and their long-term financial health.

The company emerged from stealth mode last month to announce that it has already raised a combined total of $25 million across two rounds of financing.  Its Series A round was led by Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) and its Series B round was led by Venrock, with participation from IVP.

In addition to Bill Harris, who was first EVP and then CEO of Intuit from 1995 to 1999, and then CEO of PayPal from 1999 to 2000, Personal Capital boasts a rockstar management team, including EverBank co-founder and former Fidelity Investments Personal Trust Company President, Rob Foregger (CSO), and former E-Loan CIO, Jay Shah (CIO).