New hires at PanXchange don’t need costume parties, endless supplies of craft beer or other frivolities to entice them to come on board. The company values a healthy work/life balance and to attract new talent they emphasize that they're a Fintech disruptor, hell-bent on changing the way natural resources are being traded around the world.
PanXchange created web-based software that allows for people to trade natural resources — which, as you might imagine, is a huge industry. According to CEO Julie Lerner, CEO of PanXchange, natural resources are still traded in pretty antiquated ways.
“Today, most natural resources, and that’s anything that comes out of the ground, are traded predominantly by phone.” Lerner said. “I built PanXchange to make traders' jobs easier and more cost effective.”
The company had a successful pilot launch in the international sugar market awhile back, and in August went live in the East African grain market. Since then, they have worked with some big, key players there, and their customers represent around 35 percent of the total market — not too shabby for such a young company.
“Panxchange is a robust, dynamic negotiation tool. People can trade anonymously, but can still choose their counterparts,” Lerner said. “The real world of natural resources is more of a negotiation than you’ll find on something like Alibaba. Fine tuning the details of a deal is important.”
The service is different from other trading sites because it actually allows for negotiations between parties. Through the service users negotiate all the terms of buying and selling, be it terms of delivery, payment types or price itself. It's not simply a click-and-buy scenario.
“We’re the vehicle that matches buyers and sellers,” Lerner said.
The company has big eyes for the future, and given the size of the industry they operate in, there are lots of places for it to go. Right now, Lerner said the company is looking at projects including things like U.S. crude oil and cannabis.
