DEMO 2008: Rudder Reinvents Personal Finance Management and Unveils Innovative Financial Planning Solution at DEMOfall 08

At DEMOfall 08 today, Rudder(R), Inc., a company that enables users to manage their finances from the ease of their email inbox, announced the next generation in financial management with its new suite of personal finance software. After a simple and secure one-time set up, Rudder takes financial management to the lifestyle solution level by adapting to human behavior and delivering important account updates straight to the user’s email inbox. With customizable widgets that analyze the user’s financial situation and provide valuable, forward-looking alerts, Rudder provides users unprecedented ease and control over their personal finances. Rudder can be found at Station #58 in the DEMOfall 08 Pavilion and its solution is currently available for free by visiting http://www.rudder.com/.

“A consistent theme in today’s greatest innovations is to help make the Web smarter and easier for consumers,” said Chris Shipley, executive producer of the DEMO Conferences. “Rudder has the potential to be a disruptive force in the personal finance space.”

“Because we understand that there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to handling finances, we developed a solution that can be tailored to the needs of every user and continue to grow with them,” said Nikhil Roy, founder and CEO of Rudder. “Rudder has finally solved the problem that others have attempted to solve for years, ensuring that our users spend less time managing their finances and more time doing the things they truly enjoy.”

Rudder’s personal finance software is built on three key building blocks that provide users with a simple, concise and clutter-free money management interface.

– Rudder proactively delivers financial information to its users. As opposed to most personal finance products that require users to remember to check in on their finances, which often involves logging into several different Web sites to manage them, Rudder delivers relevant financial information — such as credit card and checking account balances, transactions, upcoming bills, and related projections — automatically to the user’s email inbox.

– Rudder focuses on the future, not on the past. Instead of showing users where they may have gone wrong, Rudder looks ahead. Its widgets automatically perform the analysis and help make better financial decisions today. The ‘What’s Left’ feature looks at your current situation, factors in upcoming bills and expected income, and lets users know what they’re left with to spend, save or invest and still meet their future obligations. The Rudder Spend Meter analyzes current spending trends and determines their impact on future savings, providing an effortless way to determine whether users can afford to buy something now or whether they would be better off holding off on the purchase for a little while.

– Rudder’s Got Widgets. Personal finance management means different things to different people. Some are trying to save for a home while others are trying to pay off credit card debts. Rudder successfully addresses the needs of everyone without burdening them with noise from unwanted features. By offering a unique building block solution in the form of widgets, users can choose the features they need and ignore the others. Rudder currently offers an array of widgets around cash flow, savings and budgeting.

As Rudder continues to implement its vision, you can expect:

– The release of additional lifestyle-oriented widgets from the company, including subscription based premium widgets

– The launch of a third-party developer program and subsequent widget marketplace

– A mobile version of the solution that will allow users to access their information on the go.

About Rudder

Rudder is a simple Financial Lifestyle Solution — the next generation in Personal Finance Management (PFM) — that saves users time and effort by delivering intuitive updates of their finances — straight to their email inbox. Rudder covers the basics like account balances, transactions, and bill reminders and also offers advanced widgets around cash flow analysis, budgeting, and savings. Unlike most PFM tools that dwell on the past, Rudder helps users navigate their finances by providing actionable information that can helps them make better financial decisions going forward.

Currently, Rudder partners with CashEdge, Inc. (http://www.cashedge.com/), to gather bank information for its users. CashEdge is a leading provider of online financial applications to banks, credit unions, brokerage, and wealth management firms that currently serves 4 of the top 5 US banks. This strategic partnership provides a high level of security for Rudder’s users, with no one at Rudder having access to any of their banking credentials.

The company obtained a $2M Series A round of financing from Meakem Becker Venture Capital in 2007. Meakem Becker is an early-stage venture capital firm that invests in a wide range of information technology and life sciences companies. Based out of Sewickley, Pennsylvania its experienced team of entrepreneurs and investors provide valuable guidance and advice. Glen Meakem and Alan C. Veeck from Meakem Becker retain seats on the board, along with Rudder’s executive team — Nikhil Roy, founder and CEO; Nikunj Somaiya, CFO; and Anil Ali, VP of Engineering.

Rudder is based in Houston, Texas.

About DEMO

Produced by Network World Events and Executive Forums, the semi-annual DEMO conferences focus on emerging technologies and new products, which are hand-selected from across the spectrum of the technology marketplace. The DEMO conferences have earned their reputation for consistently identifying tomorrow’s cutting-edge technologies, and have served as launch pad events for companies such as Palm, E*Trade, Handspring, and U.S. Robotics, helping them to secure venture funding, establish critical business relationships, and influence early adopters. Each DEMO conference features approximately 70 new companies, products and technologies. For more information, visit http://www.demo.com/.

Source: Rudder, Inc.

CONTACT: Sue Ellen Schaming of Rudder, Inc., +1-415-722-8583,
sueellen@rudder.com

Web site: http://www.rudder.com/
http://www.demo.com/

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