Goldex, the first gold marketplace to ethically find the best prices
Goldex has raised £2.2M in total. We talk with Sylvia Carrasco, its CEO.
PetaCrunch: How would you describe Goldex in a single tweet?
Sylvia Carrasco: Goldex is the smart way to buy gold. We have created the first gold marketplace to ethically find the best prices for our customers. Whether they buy or sell, they don’t need to shop around, our smart technology does it all and always finds the best deals. We make investments in gold simple, fair and convenient.
PC: How did it all start and why?
SC: I first thought of launching Goldex in 2014. As a personal gold investor, I became frustrated by the lack of clarity around what the best price was to buy and sell gold.
As an unregulated asset class, market making conditions where not particularly fair for small investors in terms of transparency. Since gold doesn’t have a consolidated price (same as when you buy currencies), it was clear that finding the best deal was at best cumbersome, frustrating and hard. I had to go into each individual provider website and see what they offered me. Of course, with prices changing, by the time I had made a decision, I had to start all over again!
This is when I thought that it would be nice to be able to have a place where I could always go knowing that I would be offered the best deal. No more need to shop around, no need to spend hours trying to decipher obscure commissions. A place where I could leave my gold deposited knowing that it was safe and insured. And where I could also sell it instantly and again at the best price. This kept me thinking: if I want all this, as a consumer, the marketplace has to be neutral. It would be biased if Goldex was also benefiting from the prices…so we went one step further in the industry and set up the company as a pure technology platform, not owning a gram of gold.
Our retail customers get access to the marketplace, news, trade recommendations, charts and more via our smartphone app. Although it is very sophisticated behind the scenes, we have made sure that it is very easy to use. For our Institutional clients we provide a trading API that constantly feeds them with prices whilst we take care of the technology behind, the execution and the custody of their gold.
PC: What have you achieved so far?
SC: Since we launched the app in the UK, we have tripled the number of users on our platform, doubled the size of our team and started our expansion into India. We’ve also won a handful of awards for our innovation and vision.
PC: How will you use your recent funding round?
SC: We are investing in our technology, hiring more staff and expanding into India to tap into one of the world’s biggest gold markets. We are very encouraged by the feedback from the ecosystem in there. The opportunity to disrupt such a large market is very exciting for us and we know we are on the right path.
PC: What do you plan to achieve in the next 2–3 years?
SC: Our marketplace model is global. We want to replicate it everywhere: Europe, USA, Middle East, Asia, Latin America… The beauty of Goldex is that we are now able to adapt the technology developed into other markets with minimum efforts. We just have to adapt it to each region but the ethos and the vision remains the same everywhere. Our 2–3 year plan will take us into launching in more regions and bring this new value proposition to as many consumers as possible. Nobody says it is an easy thing to do, but we are working hard to make sure that Goldex becomes a global brand and the main point of reference when it comes to invest in physical gold.
