Gullak Money

Gullak Money is a mobile application designed to automate savings and seamlessly invest those savings in gold. Launched in India, the platform has experienced rapid growth, acquiring 40,000 transacting users and achieving a monthly Gross Transaction Value (GTV) of $280,000 within the first 60 days. The company reports a consistent week-on-week growth rate of 25%.

India has a strong savings culture; however, traditional savings methods often fail to generate substantial wealth. A significant portion of the population, approximately 200 million individuals, rely on manual bank deposits, which frequently yield returns that do not outpace the country's inflation rate.

Gold is a highly valued asset in India, with middle-income households purchasing an estimated $30 billion worth of gold annually. Despite its cultural significance and historically higher returns compared to bank deposits, many Indians continue to save through less profitable means. This is primarily due to the cumbersome processes associated with traditional gold investments, including manual accumulation of funds, in-person purchases, and storage fees. The high minimum purchase amount at physical stores further discourages small, regular investments.

Gullak Money simplifies gold savings by enabling users to automatically save small amounts, such as $1 per day, in digital gold. This innovation is made possible by recent advancements in underlying infrastructure, specifically UPI Autopay.

The company estimates a substantial market opportunity, projecting that with 50 million Indians saving $2 per day and utilizing gold-backed lending, the market could reach $1.5 billion.

The founding team behind Gullak Money previously developed the BHIM UPI App, which achieved 10 million downloads in its first 10 days and was launched by the Prime Minister of India. They also have experience building large-scale payment systems for major partners like GooglePay and Amazon, processing over 30 million payments daily. This team has a proven track record of building and scaling consumer brands.