The brainchild of Gavin Littlejohn, founder and CEO, Money Dashboard provides a similar service to US personal finance site , which was sold last month for $170m.
Money Dashboard is a secure and free online personal finance service that helps individuals and families to manage their money more effectively.
It is a piece of software that links into a user's online financial accounts, including savings and current accounts, credit and store cards and mortgage accounts, allowing them to view all of their transactions in one place.
It is aiming to officially launch in early 2010 after a beta testing phase starting in late November.
The company is focusing on a 20- to 40-year-old target audience and has been running a social media campaign across various online channels including , and to raise awareness of the service and to drive registration ahead of the beta launch next month.
The service tags user's transactions (BHS is tagged as clothing, Shell would be tagged as fuel), creating an easy way for them to see where their money is going and allowing them to create budgets.
Users can be alerted by text or email of any budget overspend, suspicious transaction or important event.
The service will periodically suggest financial products that could help users save money or grow their wealth, either immediately (like changing credit cards to a better deal) or in the long term (by identifying a better savings account or more tax efficient option).
By serving these product suggestions, Money Dashboard will receive marketing commissions from the product providers. However, Money Dashboard will inform the user when it is suggesting a product that it is being paid to promote.
Littlejohn stressed that Money Dashboard users will not be introduced to financial products each time they log into the service. He said products will only be suggested periodically and that the site's aim is to "always be on the consumer's side".
Littlejohn told Brand Republic: "Consumers are perhaps not feeling the same way about their financial providers as they did a few years ago. We're very much positioned on the consumer's side.
"The dashboard was set up to give consumers a really easy way to manage their household finances and to give them the support to make their money go further."
David Riley, head of product marketing at Money Dashboard, said that the company was hoping to create forums and online communities, either through , or on the site itself, where users could discuss financial topics and share their experiences.
Riley told Brand Republic: "The [site's] interface lends itself to being a very social tool."
The consortium of investors from the public and private sector includes Par Syndicate, Money Dashboard's management team and a number of individuals. Scottish Enterprise Co-Investment fund has matched Par Syndicate's investment.
This new round of financing will allow Money Dashboard to complete a rigorous schedule of security and technical audits.
The investment builds on earlier funding rounds during which Money Dashboard raised over half a million pounds to complete a two-year research and development phase.
Money Dashboard said it is initially concentrating on the UK market, but intends to expand globally in the future.
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