FNG Exclusive Interview… Gold-i, one of the original technology innovators in the online trading industry, celebrated its 16-year anniversary this year. We talked to founder and CEO Tom Higgins about the tech firm’s successes, company culture, growth plans and industry trends. Here is what Tom had to say.
FNG: Hi Tom, and congrats on Gold-i’s 16th anniversary. As one of the pioneering tech firms in the industry, what are you most proud of?
Tom: I’m most proud of the fact that we have served so many customers over so many years and that we have enabled hundreds of businesses in our industry to grow and thrive.
FNG: How has the business evolved over the last 16 years in terms of product offering, client types and global reach?
Tom: The biggest change has been our evolution from a bridge provider for FX brokers to a multi-asset liquidity management specialist. Our liquidity management platform, MatrixNET is now our flagship product. It incorporates a number of our previous products into a single platform and covers connectivity, liquidity management and our crypto trading technology.
We have expanded geographically too. The business started out with a UK-based team. As FX is a global business, it’s always been important to us to be able to sell to clients in any country in the world and to support them across all time zones. We have established and grown a team in the APAC region so that we can provide full 24/7 coverage to our clients.
Another major change has been our focus on cryptos. When the business launched 16 years ago, cryptos weren’t even a consideration. However, we were one of the first companies in the industry to launch a product to enable FX brokers to add cryptos as an additional asset class and we have continually evolved our offering this area. As a result, our client base has broadened and now includes brokers, hedge funds, pure crypto players and prop trading firms.
FNG: Where is your current growth coming from?
Tom: It is pretty evenly split between FX and crypto. Volatility in the FX world over the last couple of years has brought a lot more activity into FX brokers; this has coincided with the crypto market becoming more mature, with a stronger institutional focus. We’re benefiting from growth in both areas. We’re also seeing our prop trading clients growing at the fastest rate of any type of institution.
In the crypto market, institutional volumes are increasing all the time in Spot and in Perps. The growth of Prime Brokers such as Hidden Road continues to be the direction of travel for institutional trading. MatrixNET is fully integrated with these firms, enabling our clients to access a wide range of crypto products efficiently and cost effectively.
We have continually invested in and tested our MatrixNET to ensure that it meets the needs of the institutional market and can process hundreds of thousands of price messages a second.
FNG: Gold-i has recently changed its logo ‘marking a new chapter’. What other changes have you made/are you planning to prepare your business for the next growth phase?
Tom: We changed the Gold-i logo to reflect that MatrixNet is our core product, it’s the foundation of everything and the direction of our growth, with DeFi, CeFi and FX. We are continuing to focus on our MatrixNET to be able to serve larger and larger customers.
We also continue to invest in our team. Most recently, Mark Alvarez-Buylla has recently been promoted to COO and we have also appointed five more support engineers, in the UK and in the APAC region. We also have plans to grow our development team in the UK.
Gold-i is consistently known to be a great place to work at – and this is something that I’m very proud of. We have creative a supportive, kind and friendly environment, which I believe is so important in order to motivate employees and attract new people to join our team.
FNG: What is the key lesson learned over the last 16 years?
Tom: Being kind and decent always pays in business above aggressive business practices.
FNG: If you want prospective clients to know one thing about Gold-i, what would that be?
Tom: We are honest, dedicated people with innovative, reliable technology. We can help you!
