Gold as currency fintech firm, Glint Pay, has continued its expansion since its Crowdcube campaign in 2018. Today, it announced that it had secured an additional £2.5 million in funding to support its growth, to 138,000 active users in the next twelve months.
The funding news follows the launch of Glint Pay’s peer-to-peer transfer facility – called ‘Glint It!’ – which allows users to send and receive money, including spendable gold and other forms of currency. The company identifies itself as one of the first to use gold as ‘an everyday global currency’, with its app allowing customers to ‘buy, sell, spend and share’ their physical gold.
Speaking on the recent fundraiser, the company said that £1.25 million was made up of private investment, with the remaining £1.25 million being contributed by the UK government’s Future Fund. Glint said that the fund matches the capital raised through private investment, and that it ”was launched to support innovative companies during the Covid-19 pandemic”.
Since its launch in 2016, this latest round of investment sees the company’s funding amount to a total of £24 million. The company said that the recent funds will be leveraged to support the growth of its fintech app, and will contribute to key personnel hires, marketing investment and expanding the Glint userbase.
Commenting on the news and the company’s ambitions, Founder and CEO, Jason Cozens, said: “This latest funding is another significant step towards fulfilling our growth plans. We set out to transform the industry and the amount of funding we’ve secured since launch proves that there’s real appetite amongst investors and consumers for an innovative alternative to spend, save and store their finances.”
“After last year’s expansion into the US and the launch of our P2P offering, Glint It!, we’re eager to tackle the next stage of our growth and meet our ambitious targets over the next 12 months. Additional funding will help to facilitate this, but it is our diverse and exceptional leadership team that provides us with a clear, competitive edge.”
Mr Cozens added that the Future Fund has been “hugely effective” for many businesses in the current climate, and will help the government’s ambition to support the UK’s most innovative companies. He finished by saying that: “This fundraising will accelerate our international expansion as well as attract additional future investment sources, from both within the UK and externally.”
With the demand for online banking and fintech solutions allegedly rising by 50% during the pandemic, it will be interesting to see whether Glint will continue to capitalise on what is essentially an unsteady market. Also worth considering is that gold has rallied once again on Friday, but should a COVID vaccine be rolled out successfully, will safe havens like the dollar and gold lose some of their appeal – and would this affect Glint’s success?