Mtlexs Research founded in the year 2013 by Chartered Accountant Mrs. Saloni Mardia Kothari (Masters in Accountancy and Finance, LSE) hailing from a family having 5 decades of experience in Non Ferrous Metals industry. The portal provides Research + Insights related to Non Ferrous metal Industry. In a short span of 3 years, Mtlexs Team comprising of experienced Non Ferrous Metal Industry professionals has worked towards growth & development of Mtlexs with commitment to innovation.
The company was founded with the mission to solve business pain points of Technology, Marketing and Finance and to help enable a future ready status for all players in the Non Ferrous Metals Ecosystem.
Sujata Sangwan Interacts With Mrs. Saloni Mardia Kothari, Chief analyst, Founder and CEO, Mtlexs Research And Spoke To Her
How does Mtlexs Research work? Our portal provides research and insights related to the NFM industry. Mtlexs Research provides live national and international prices as well as well as local market prices, along with tenders, import and export data, projects, industry news, technical specifications, demand and supply data, weight calculators and any such information which helps in daily business decision making. Mtlexs Research has collaborated with different associations like Indian Copper Development Centre, Bombay Metal Exchange, Aluminium Association of India, India Lead and Zinc Development Association and other such organizations, creating a Forum with the most reliable and well-known names in the NFM industry. A mobile application is in the making where users will get all NFM market content on the mobile phone by downloading the app.
Mtlexs Spot is the e-marketplace of Mtlexs Group, in partnership with NeML, a 100% subsidiary of NCDEX (National Commodity & Derivatives Exchange Limited). This platform brings the buyers and sellers onto a unique and exclusive online auction market as well as a Continuous Order based market. We cater not only to the primary producers and other prominent manufacturers as well as International Scrap dealers and stockists, but also our main target audience is the MSME sector of the industry, which in itself is a huge market.
Mtlexs Spot is a fair and impartial marketplace. Its members connect online through a secure and reliable system, increasing efficiency in their businesses as well as reducing costs.
How is Mtlexs different from existing ones? We needed to differentiate ourselves by adding completeness and depth in our vision. The key focus areas for Mtlexs Group are Content, Collaboration and Commerce.
• Content: Having been an intrinsic part of the NFM industry for over 30 years, we wanted to share our knowledge with fellow members in the NFM Ecosystem. We wanted our differentiator to be insights not just content.
We began by outsourcing research to third parties. However, we realised this did not meet our vision of completeness and depth. Hence, our decision to set up Mlexs Research, the research and advisory arm of Mtlexs Group with our own team of inhouse analysts. From being dependent on third party sources, today, we have graduated to providing insights with guaranteed integrity.
• Collaboration: We realized that mere matchmaking of buyers and sellers was not enough. We needed to progress to 360 degree collaboration with the entire NFM ecosystem. With this in mind, we formed alliances with over 25 National and International NFM Associations.
• Commerce: After solidifying our pillars of content and collaboration, the logical next step was commerce. We were already addressing information pain points by giving information about tenders, auctions, prices, etc. But we realized there was a strong need to also address business pain points of Technology, Marketing and Finance.
Hence was born, our e-marketplace, Mtlexs Spot, the online trading platform of Mtlexs Group. in partnership with NeML, a subsidiary of NCDEX, MtlexsSpot brings MSME buyers onto the online auction market. With Mtlexs Spot we have graduated from being passive trading participants to become active trading participants. As a first mover in this space, Mtlexs Spot plans to revolutionize the NFM ecosystem.
We have achieved a great deal of Awareness & Credibility in the World Non-Ferrous market through Content dissemination & collaborative efforts and will leverage that credibility to bring Trades Online.
What are the funding status and monetization model of the company? Currently we are a boostraped startup. We are keen to raise funds with a synergetic Investor. We have a multi-nodal revenue model comprising of both transactional and annuity earnings.
• 50% revenue share with NeML on auction platform MtlexsSpot
• Admission and Annual Membership Fees to trade platform,
• Transaction Charges on trades on MtlexsSpot
• Interest Earnings on Float Money with traders on MtlexsSpot.
• SME Aggregation for their raw material procurement will yield higher commission income for MtlexsSpot
• High Arbitage levels in Scrap trade will also result in higher commission income for MtlexsSpot
• Through Consultancy and Personalised Advisory Services
• Transaction charges for trade as an Offline aggregator
• Commission on Bank loan to SME arranged through Mtlexs.
• Annual Subscription to Mtlexs Research
• Banner Advertisements
• Sale of Market Research
• Sponsorships and Participation Fees for Trade Events organised by Mtlexs
• Logistics and Warehousing Charges
• Fees for Quality Assurance Services
What are the traction details? Mtlexs has an online catalog of 1000 + products & a 3 level database driven metal market. Mtlexs currently has a database of 36,000 members and clocks 21,000 digital subscribers from 109 countries with more than 500,000 hits per month.
What are the future and marketing plans of the company? The objective of Mtlexs is to become a leader in the Non Ferrous metal industry through the marketplace by increasing the efficiency and transparency in the trade, making trade easier and creating a win-win situation for all.
Our aim is to leverage e-commerce as a global distribution medium and build a premier electronic marketplace, even in the global Non-Ferrous Metal industry, almost a Trillion dollar industry.
Mtlexs has deployed online, offline and print media strategy to make the ecosystem aware of our offerings and take benefit of the Mtlexs services, as follows.
Online - we have about 21000 subscribers to whom weekly newsletters, monthly price monitors and other informative emailers are sent. We also have 10 partner associations who send out informative emailers on our behalf to their members. We also have presence in social networking like Linkedin and Twitter and promote our news/article through these sources.
Offline - we participate in various events and conferences as exhibitors, speakers and delegates and promote Mtlexs activities and have personally build relationships with more than 2000 professionals.
Print – We issue advertisements in various magazies relating to the industry many of which are on barter terms with the associations.
Challenges faced by the company, along with the market size and opportunities, etc. The NFM industry in India has a few primary producers, companies like Hindalco, Vedanta, Nalco, Hindustan Copper and Hindustan Zinc (owned by Vedanta). However, the bulk of the industry comprises of secondary and downstream manufacturers, making it highly fragmented with the presence of a large number of smaller companies and a few medium-sized companies. The NFM industry is characterized by a large number of intermediaries, inefficient distribution systems, frequent supply and demand imbalance lack of timely and complete price and trade information and high transaction costs.
Mtlexs aims to reach/register about 10,000 MSME units in the next 3 years out of about 1 million MSME’s in the Non Ferrous Ecosystem and offer them various services from Research as well as Trade. 70% cost for Manufacturing SME is the raw material cost. SME operate in Unstructured market & difficult to get quality Raw material at right price; including lack of finance.
The Aim is to create an ecosystem that addresses challenges faced by MSME’s in Raw Material Procurement & Financial Assistance.
The world market is about 75 million tons of Aluminium, 25 million tons of Copper and other metals, which are traded atleast 3 times making it worth about USD 1 trillion. The Indian market is about 2.7 million tons Aluminium, 0.8 million tons of Copper and other metals is about 45 billion tons.
Mtlexs targets to get about Rs. 10,000 Crore worth of trade online in the next 3 years.
