Fintechlab Company Spotlight: Coinrule
Welcome to Fintechlab’s Company Spotlight. In our newest series, we would like to introduce you to some of our portfolio companies via a short interview, covering topics such as where they have been since participating in our program, what milestones they’ve achieved so far, and a sneak peek at their plans for the near future.
This Company Spotlight series has come to an end, but don’t worry we will come back soon. In the final interview, you can hear thoughts from Gabriele Musella, co-founder & CEO of Coinrule, the smart assistant for crypto currency trading. We’ve talked about the company’s evolution, the challenges they’re facing nowadays, and about why he’s calling COVID-19 period the ‘good black swan event’. Grab a coffee and get inspired!
Where did the idea of Coinrule come from?
Funny enough, it was a period where I was playing a lot with crypto currency tools like Blockfolio and started having many ideas for new products, fascinated by the potential of those new assets and the world of decentralised finance (DeFi) being built around them. Then, inspired by a former colleague, I opened an account on IG Index in order to run some scripts and take advantage of market opportunities in some more traditional markets, although that interface was complicated and the automated script required way too much coding to make it work.
How did you come up with the concept?
I quickly realised there is nothing on the market that serve this specific needs for normal — hobbyist- traders like me, and that is when I opened my note book and started sketching the first version of Coinrule. Right after that I moved on to Figma putting together the first wireframes and met Oleg and Zdenek to bounce ideas and to begin this exciting journey. Zdenek was a hero, he made the first MVP in only 4 weeks.
What kind of solutions do you offer for your customers?
Coinrule lets you automate your investments across platforms to protect your funds and catch the next market opportunity. We empowers regular traders to compete with professional algorithmic traders and Hedge funds — a smart assistant to build automated trading strategies in few steps with the simplicity of a no-code platform.
And now we come to the topic that has had a huge impact on every company’s life these past few months. How has COVID-19 affected Coinrule?
What is controversial, although utterly true, is the fact that Covid-19 was actually a good black swan event for Coinrule; our customer base grew massively.
“Locking” up our users in their own houses gave them more time for trading and an opportunity to learn about the new world of finance.
In fact, we are proud that the 67% of all funds invested through Coinrule is actually on profit, despite the market crash derived by Covid 19 affecting the world economy.
That in itself is a positive signal for the team vision, and it is wood for our fiery mission.
You recently got capital investment from a group of angel investors. Could you tell us some hint?
Fundraising is a fulltime job. Me and my co-founder were for three months full-time on funding activities and part-time for the other three more months. It is an endless chain of introductions facilitated by a game of seduction. Balancing the raising practise with the product management and the coordination of the team is the key for a good outcome. At the same time while you are juggling those three important factors, you are also required to be calm enough to be able to recognize what is a good deal and which of the investors fits your company culture better. Ultimately a firm decision has to be taken by the cofounders, therefore, it is wise to keep some energy for that. A serene state of mind at the end of the fundraise means you did the right move.
What partnerships are you working on now, are you planning to connect the system to new crypto exchanges?
Partnering with other product teams we respect is a relevant part of our customer acquisition. Following our successful collaboration with Kraken, Bitpanda, Liquid, Okex, and many others I can now finally disclose we are working with Luno and also with a selected number of leverage exchanges such as Deribit and Bitmex.
If I know it correctly, Coinrule is planning a crowdfunding campaign via SEEDRS. Can you tell us about details?
In September 2020 we are giving the opportunity to all hobbyist investors to buy shares of Coinrule.
It is something we have wanted to do for a while; opening up our cap table to the Coinrule users, to the crypto community, as well as to new friends that believe in our vision for financial inclusion in the trading space. Join us on in this journey via Seedrs.
You can find out more info here: https://www.seedrs.com/coinrule/coming-soon
What are your long term plans?
Coinrule is right on track to become the link between the old world of finance and the new, offering automated trading across all crypto and non-crypto platforms.
Hiding financial transaction data from the public, having automated dark pools with better prices for institutional investors that penalise ‘normal’ investors, and imposing high trading fees is something from the 90s.
The new world of finance requires levelling the play field between these two groups.
Till that point is reached, we are here to stay, we are here to hustle.
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We hope you enjoyed this intro into Coinrule! To learn more visit their website here: https://coinrule.io/
