Gatecoin, an award-winning startup based in Hong Kong operating a bitcoin exchange platform, has announced its advisory board composed of seasoned entrepreneurs, investments bankers and IT experts. The startup has appointed serial fintech entrepreneur and VC investor George Popescu as Chairman.
Popescu currently leads multiple companies including Boston Technologies, Inc., a forex trading technology provider, and Backed, an online lending platform. He is also a Partner at Techstars Accelerator and a Startup Mentor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Commenting on his new position, Popescu said:
“Throughout human history, Asia has always been a center for innovation and growth. Gatecoin is in the right place at the right time doing the right thing.
Bitcoin is here to revolutionize how payments are made. Bitcoin payments are instantaneous, 100% safe, and by far the cheapest. It will impact humanity in the same way as paper money did when it replaced gold and silver.”
Along with Popescu, four other individuals join Gatecoin’s advisory board:
- Jean Marie Mognetti is a senior partner at Global Advisors (Jersey) Limited, the investment manager at the origin of the first fully regulated bitcoin investment vehicle: Global Advisors Bitcoin Investment (GABI) Fund Plc.;
- Jacques Tepe brings 16 years of experience in the brokerage industry with responsibilities including CIO and global head of IT sales of Newedge in Asia;
- Luis Bellver helped set up the first online bank in Spain 20 years ago, and has since built a career at top tier banks including Credit Suisse. Bellver is currently Director at the FIG (financial institutions) division for a major investment bank;
- Ian Brodie has 25 years of experience in IT management having worked for major brand names in France and Hong Kong and currently Managing Director of Pandora IT.
By appointing top industry leaders, Gatecoin is looking to boost its exchange’s growth and capture the B2B digital currency market.
“Our aim is to curate a group of advisors with the invaluable experience and insight to bring Gatecoin to the next level,” Aurélien Menant, CEO and Co-Founder at Gatecoin, said. “I am confident that our advisory board members will help us achieve just that.”
Menant, a former investment banker, launched Gatecoin in 2013. Along with being incubated by the Tuspark business park in Nanjing, Gatecoin is also the only bitcoin company to be incubated by the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation, a statutory body of the Hong Kong Government.
Earlier this year, Gatecoin became the first bitcoin exchange to offer segregated bank accounts for customers in 40 countries across five continents. The feature, which is fairly common in the traditional forex exchange world, allows customers’ funds to be kept in separate bank accounts to the company’s own funds, protecting users from an eventual force majeure.