Personal finance iOS app Moneytree nabbed USD1.6 million in a seed investment round. The round was led by DG Incubation, which is the investment arm of Digital Garage. The investment round also saw the participation of private investors which included PayPal, MasterCard and Morgan Stanley senior executives.

The Tokyo-based startup was founded and headed by Australian serial entrepreneur Paul Chapman. Chapman sold his first company cvMail, an e-recruitment software, to Thomson Reuters in 2007. Along with co-founders Mark Markdad and Ross Sharrott, Moneytree was born while working at enWorld, a professional services firm based in Tokyo.

Chapman said Moneytree is a unique product that focuses on educating users how they perceive money.

Chapman said to TechCrunch, "Moneytree aims to radically simplify your relationship with money, from the way we think about money, to the way we access related information and how we use it. Although Mint.com defined what a money app should be for 2009, a new definition suited to the smartphone/tablet era does not exist. We are working to make Moneytree the new standard for money related mobile apps."

"In Japan, most financial data aggregators are Web focused. They are designed for Web 1.0 and are not natively mobile. We believe money is an inherently personal interaction. Since the device we use for personal use is increasingly a mobile one, the right choice was obvious," Chapman said.

Moneytree has been downloaded more than 200,000 times since being featured on the Japanese App Store. Since it would carry data from more than a thousand financial institutions by next year, its aggregate data showed that over 15 million transactions had occurred since launching in April this year.

Moneytree would be using the new funding to expand into markets abroad, particularly in the US starting next year. The app maker is currently working on a Web app and its iPad version.