Goldmoney Announces Investment in Menē Inc. - News

Luxury online jewelry venture founded in partnership with Diana Widmaier-Picasso to offer pure 24 karat gold designs

TORONTO – (June 15, 2017) – Goldmoney Inc. (TSX:XAU) (“Goldmoney”), a precious metal financial service and technology company, today announced its investment in Menē Inc. (“Menē”), a newly formed direct-to-consumer fine jewelry venture. Menē will manufacture and retail timeless 24 karat gold jewelry online through an innovative first-to-market user experience and transparent pricing model.

Menē Inc., founded by Roy Sebag and noted art historian Diana Widmaier-Picasso, has its principal office located at 6 Place Vendome in Paris, France. Goldmoney Inc. has secured the largest equity investment in Menē Inc. after Menē founders Roy Sebag and Diana Widmaier-Picasso. Menē has agreed to exclusive dealing, storage, and wholesale distribution with Goldmoney as part of the investment.

Sebag, the largest shareholder of both Goldmoney and Menē, serves as Chief Executive Officer of the venture. Menē creative and artistic direction is overseen by Ms. Widmaier-Picasso, who serves as Chief Artistic Director. Multifaceted designer Sunjoo Moon, who formerly designed for Missoni and LVMH’s Kenzo brand, serves as Creative Director.

By crafting timeless gold jewelry and providing a transparent and empowering shopping experience, Menē aims to revive the ancient tradition of jewelry as a store of enduring value and accessible savings. Menē is currently in closed private beta and will launch to the greater public in the fall of 2017.

Menē – The Name
Menē (“meh-ney”) is an ancient Aramaic word with a deep meaning that links jewelry, gold, money, and savings. A “Menē”, reﬂecting 567 grams of pure gold, is the ﬁrst written word for “money” as codified in the Code of Hammurabi approximately 4,000 years ago. For much of written history, humans exchanged value by pricing goods and services in units of “menē”, which provided a predefined measurement of gold. Those units were often ultimately settled as pure 24 karat jewelry that could be readily exchanged. This ancient tradition, though often misunderstood by economists, is alive and well in the East where pure gold jewelry powers a savings economy in which jewelry is bought, sold, exchanged, and borrowed against as an asset that maintains its purchasing power.

“Since the 2008 financial crisis, it has been my objective to build companies that democratize access to physical gold, reviving the wisdom of a natural, decentralized, savings-based economy. With Goldmoney, we built the first digital gold-backed savings and payments platform to empower individuals by making gold accessible and interoperable digitally as commodity money,” said Goldmoney CEO Roy Sebag. “With Menē, we plan to disrupt the global jewelry industry – an industry that has seemingly forgotten that jewelry has historically been a store of enduring value. Industry incumbents have focused on diluting precious metal content with inferior metallic elements that tarnish with time, failing to achieve the primary objective of fine jewelry: to forever bind cherished memories in a timeless object that has intrinsic savings value. It is our vision to offer exceptionally designed jewelry that preserves its original purchase price, with a unique client experience that allows Menē jewelry to be sold or exchanged as easily as it can be bought.”

“I am honoured to have my friend Diana Widmaier-Picasso as my business partner on this venture. Her unparalleled encyclopedic knowledge of art, design, and ancient jewelry is an asset to the development of our global luxury brand,” said Sebag. “I am also pleased to welcome Sunjoo Moon as Creative Director, who is overseeing a product catalog of several hundred rings, bracelets, chains, pendants, earrings, and gifts that will be unveiled in seasonal collections.”

“Artists have always venerated gold, especially the Egyptians who enclosed their royal mummies in massive gold sarcophagi. Gold was thus always treasured for its solar symbolism associated with power and richness, as well as for its protective and timeless value, said Diana Widmaier-Picasso. “I am excited to participate in this inspirational collaboration with my friends Roy Sebag and Sunjoo Moon as Chief Artistic Director of Menē.”

“Goldmoney is committed to continuous innovation, thought leadership in precious metals, and building a collaborative global ecosystem around all forms of commodity money. We are thrilled to announce our investment in Menē and support of the tireless work of an incredible team of designers, manufacturers, and software engineers who have invested in the Menē vision,” said Goldmoney Co-Founder & Chief Strategy Officer Josh Crumb. “The Goldmoney board has been unanimous in our support of Roy and Diana’s work on Menē, and what we believe the venture will mean for Goldmoney clients, shareholders, and the growth of a broader Goldmoney ecosystem that is solidified by the exclusive relationship agreement developed with Menē. While the venture is at an early stage, Goldmoney has worked hard to strike the appropriate balance between time and investment outlays, while optimizing our exposure to a tangential, but in our view, hugely synergistic relationship between the two client-focused gold entities.”

Additional information about Goldmoney’s investment in Menē Inc. will be provided in upcoming company presentations and public disclosures, including the potential distribution of Menē Inc. shares to Goldmoney investors.

About Menē Inc.

Menē designs, manufactures, and markets timeless 24 karat gold jewelry that is retailed direct-to-consumer through a transparent, innovative, and empowering online experience. Menē enables customers to buy, sell, and exchange jewelry by weight at the prevailing daily price for gold as quoted on international bullion markets. Menē Inc.’s mission is to revive the ancient tradition of jewelry as a store of enduring value and accessible savings.

About Goldmoney Inc.

Goldmoney Inc., a financial service company traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX:XAU), is a global leader in precious metal investment services and the world’s largest precious metals payment network. Safeguarding $1.9 billion in assets for clients located in more than 150 countries, Goldmoney is focused on a singular mission to make precious metals-backed savings accessible to all. Powered by Goldmoney’s patented technology, the Goldmoney Holding® is an online account that enables clients to invest, earn, or spend gold, silver, platinum, and palladium that is securely stored in insured vaults in seven countries. All bullion assets are fully allocated and physically redeemable property. Goldmoney Wealth Limited is regulated by the Jersey Financial Services Commission (JFSC) as a Money Services Business. Goldmoney Network is a reporting entity to the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC), and is registered with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) in the U.S. For more information about Goldmoney, visit goldmoney.com.

Media and Investor Relations Inquiries:

Jacquelyn Humphrey
Director of Global Communications
Goldmoney Inc.
[email protected]

Josh Crumb
Chief Strategy Officer & CFO
Goldmoney Inc.
+1 647-499-6748

Forward-Looking Statements

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Forward-looking information in this release includes, but is not limited to, statements with respect to: service times for transactions on the Goldmoney network; growth of the Company’s business, expected results of operations, and the market for the Company’s products and services and competitive conditions. This forward-looking information is based on reasonable assumptions and estimates of management of the Company at the time it was made, and involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Such factors include, among others: the Company’s limited operating history; history of operating losses; future capital needs and uncertainty of additional financing; fluctuations in the market price of the Company’s common shares; the effect of government regulation and compliance on the Company and the industry; legal and regulatory change and uncertainty; jurisdictional factors associated with international operations; foreign restrictions on the Company’s operations; product development and rapid technological change; dependence on technical infrastructure; protection of intellectual property; use and storage of personal information and compliance with privacy laws; network security risks; risk of system failure or inadequacy; the Company’s ability to manage rapid growth; competition; effectiveness of the Company’s risk management and internal controls; use of the Company’s services for improper or illegal purposes; uninsured and underinsured losses; theft & risk of physical harm to personnel; precious metal trading risks; and volatility of precious metals prices & public interest in precious metals investment; and those risks set out in the Company’s most recently filed annual information form, available on SEDAR. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, except as required by law.