Barely a year after launching its platform, Toronto startup BitGold surpassed one million users on May 25 – and is using the occasion to rebrand itself.
On June 2, the company announced that it would be officially consolidating with Goldmoney Inc., the gold-based financial services firm it acquired last May, and integrating the services offered by both organizations under the Goldmoney brand.
In a statement, BitGold cofounder and Goldmoney CEO Roy Sebag called the rebranding a “logical evolution” of a year-long effort to integrate the companies, and a “fundamental step” in consolidating its global operations.
As part of the transaction, the “BitGold” brand will be phased out, and its platform applied to three segments that will operate under Goldmoney:
- Goldmoney Personal: The self-directed individual savings and payment business currently operating as BitGold;
- Goldmoney Business: BitGold’s global payment solutions arm, currently operating as BitGold Business Accounts, which provides services including gold payroll, invoicing, checkout tools, and merchant processing;
- Goldmoney Wealth: The Saint Helier, Jersey-based precious metal custodian and investment business currently operating as Goldmoney.
Sebag said the new services, which will officially be released alongside a newly redesigned Goldmoney website, will be unveiled later this year.
Founded in 2014 by Sebag and former Goldman Sachs analyst Josh Crumb as an attempt to create a Bitcoin-like network using gold, BitGold launched its eponymous platform on May 5, 2015, and its Business Accounts service in April.
Goldmoney, meanwhile, was founded in 2002 by James Turk in the British Channel Islands, and specializes in “individuals, families, and corporations with physical access to gold, silver, platinum, and palladium for investment and long-term wealth protection,” according to the company’s website. It currently manages approximately $1.6 billion in assets for more than 21,000 clients in more than 100 countries around the world.
