At BLK Global, we believe that everyone, regardless of the size of their business, should pay the real value for the goods they need.
We believe that everyone should be able to be seen, connect, compete.
We believe in a truly open, transparent and competitive market.
We therefore leveraged the power of the internet and the well consolidated approach of e-commerce and applied it to the trading of commodities, raw materials and industrial supplies.
In short, we created the Online Spot Market. A platform where buyers, sellers and shippers can get visibility, connect and grow. A place where companies can buy directly from the producers of raw materials, removing all the many steps in the supply chain that only contribute to inflate the price of the goods without adding any real value, with the only result of increasing to unbearable level the cost of sales for small businesses.
BLK Global seeks to change the way commodities are sold and bought all over the world. We aim to remove the barriers that currently prevent small businesses from accessing directly the producers of raw materials to allow for a more transparent and easy way to buy goods. This would also enable small businesses to lower their cost of sales, making the most out of their lower fixed costs and thus competing better against multinationals.
Our mission is to enable trade, to open new doors, to ultimately deliver the Online Spot Market.
During his career, Gabriele worked in Singapore, from where he travelled extensively across South-east Asia. There, he could see endless stretches of land, rice paddies, coconut plantations, thousands of small farms and hard-working people hauling their harvest on their backs. He saw the raw materials being placed on trucks and barges, being massed on dock-sides and loaded into bulk carriers bound to Europe or America, all sold for a few pennies. That was when the idea suddenly struck. What if small businesses, that are the backbone of our economy, could purchase directly from those producers? Why not enable anyone, from the small farmers in Vietnam to larger FTSE100 companies to list the goods they produce on a digital, open and transparent platform – an online spot market.
So the idea was born. The seed was planted and it was just a question of time before the numbers came together and Gabriele realised the huge potential behind the concept. Nearly 9 billion tons of commodities every year, for a market value of over 4.4 trillion dollars, growing at a steady rate of 4% per year, driven by growth in world population, increasing energy requirements from emerging countries, ever-changing trade policies among nations.
BLK Global was officially born. Headquartered the company in Glasgow in June 2018, Gabriele and his co-founder Aleksandra dived into action. Product development officially begun in October of the same year, with the final platform being completed in April 2019, beginning the testing phase.
With Brexit looming and the subsequent need for many British businesses to restructure their supply chains, Gabriele and Aleksandra worked tirelessly through the testing, finally launching blkcommodities.com in September 2019.
Recognising the need to push the platform to market and start spinning the wheel to bring more and more sellers and buyers on the site, the first external team member, Mark, joined in October 2019. Mark brings significant experience to the table, being an entrepreneur himself with strong sales skills and a long track record of achievements in the fields of strategic planning, business development and merger & acquisitions.
Now a member of Fintech Scotland, BLK Global aims to make a significant difference in the way goods are bought and sold for businesses. After all, 75% of UK businesses are 1-man companies. People like us. People shop online comfortably and will buy the materials they need for their trade online just as they do for their shopping. It is not a question of if, it’s a question of when. With BLK Global, the answer is now.
The next steps include the constitution of a core operational team of software developers, sales and customer service executives in Glasgow, together with the migration of the platform to a proprietary server to reduce the risk associated to data security and manage this directly in-house. Additionally, given the reliance of the economy on small manufacturing businesses, BLK Global is looking to launch its sales operations in Poland within the next 3 months. The target for 2020 is to have the first transactions completed through the site, with 0.1% of the UK market (£4m) to be acquired by 2022.
As BLK Global keeps growing, we seek to raise a first round of seed funding to continue driving the innovation and scale-up the business to reach as many customers as possible.
Make a difference now and learn more about how we’re about to change worldwide trade with the online spot market!
Gabriele Dadò – Founder & MD
Marine & Mechanical Engineer, currently Head of Sales @ SeaTec – Marine Technical Services. Sales, strategic planning and product development; managed multicultural teams within the dry/wet bulk trade, container, cruising and offshore oil & gas. A confident client manager with experience in international client/supplier negotiations and relationships. Commercially focused and dynamic, always on the lookout for a new challenge. Ambitious and resilient, committed to continual improvement. Gabriele holds an MSc in Marine Engineering from Strathclyde University.
Aleksandra Dadò -Co-Founder, Projects & Operations Director
Currently Director of Process Excellence team in the Firmwide Operations Division @ Morgan Stanley. Experience in process and people management with a strong focus on business & financial services. Organisational, management & project-related expertise across multiple asset classes in derivatives cash settlements. Trak record of successful communication, leadership and relationship building skills over a number of key divisions such as projects, equity, fixed income clearing and legal entity supervision. Aleksandra holds an MSc in Business & International Financial Management from the UWS.
Mark Sowery – Commercial Manager
Sitting on the board of a number of companies, Mark is an experienced team player with a strong track record in business planning & development, negotiations, risk management & governance and entrepreneurship. An entrepreneur himself, Mark has been active in a number of sectors, from banking, to oil & gas to aeronautics, where he has overseen the exit of a number of companies via M&A. Mark holds an MBA from Manchester Business School, bringing significant experience to the team.
