Business

Empowering Small Producers: How Delivered Cold Promotes Direct-to-Consumer Sales

Published

1 year ago

December 22, 2023

Over the years, but especially since working from home has become more of the norm, home delivery of food products has experienced a rapid rise in popularity. The frozen food market has seen considerable growth and is set to reach $432.55 billion by 2030 — a significant portion of which is the home delivery market.

Busy lifestyles and a desire for a wider variety of food have led people to seek the services of several home-delivery options that can deliver everything from meat to vegetables right to their door. However, the traditional direct-to-consumer frozen food market has one major downside: most are limited to one supplier per box.

Ruben Cortez, the entrepreneur behind Frozen Logistics, saw an opportunity to expand the frozen food delivery business and solve a number of pain points in the direct-to-consumer space. Cortez brings his years of experience in the entrepreneurial, technology, investment, and real estate spaces to change the traditional direct-to-consumer frozen food delivery space.

Cortez has recently unveiled Delivered Cold, a revolutionary new direct-to-consumer option that allows shoppers to add products from multiple different sellers in the same box, solving what he sees as an obvious issue with the traditional market. “We’re giving customers more options to fill their box with a variety of items they may not find elsewhere with this option,” he says, “making it easier to check out new products without a large cost commitment.”

Different from the competition

Many competing home delivery food companies often only cater to one type of consumer, whether by offering vegan options, ready-to-serve meals, or specialty products. On the other hand, Delivered Cold’s approach to home delivery, is far more streamlined.

“We are setting out to shake up an industry in need of disruption,” says Cortez. The way Delivered Cold operates is simply not possible in other marketplaces because, more often than not, sellers are left to fulfill their own product orders directly. “If a consumer buys three different items from three different sellers, the consumer will get three different boxes,” Cortez explains.

Delivered Cold focuses on empowering the small producer by eliminating the complex self-fulfillment requirement. Because Frozen Logistics operates its own cold storage facility where various products are stored, consumers can order directly from the Delivered Cold freezer, freeing up the producers to do what they do best: produce food products.

“Consumers can shop our freezers directly and access products from all of the incredible farmers, ranchers, and other producers we work with,” says Cortez.

Since the Delivered Cold approach cuts out the middleman, costly and complicated food distribution networks are simplified. By reducing touchpoints in the supply chain, consumers can count on less spoiled food and sellers have another avenue to get their products to consumers.

The sustainability factor

According to recent studies, sustainability is one of the most important factors when consumers choose a company, whether buying food or other products. In recent years, the focus on climate change has influenced every market globally, and it behooves a company to make sustainable practices a cornerstone of their service platforms.

Delivered Cold is built around a sustainability model that compresses the cold delivery supply chain required to get products from the freezer to the consumer. Their approach leads to reduced transportation costs, reduced facility requirements, and reduced material waste.

According to Cortez, Delivered Cold is dedicated to using recyclable and recycled materials throughout the shipping process. It remains cognizant of the impact of its less-than-recyclable materials that are required to get frozen products to the customer. “We plant a tree for every box we ship,” he says. “This helps offset the negative impact of materials that are not entirely sustainable but are necessary for the process.”

Additionally, the company has approached the issue of excess space in packaging that can lead to product thawing, which can cause products to arrive to the consumer in less-than-pristine condition. Traditionally, companies would fill these empty spaces with plastic or paper. Delivered Cold’s approach is decidedly technology-informed.

“Our sophisticated algorithm tracks the available space in each box as consumers shop,” Cortez explains. “We then offer appropriate products to the consumer at competitive and affordable prices, letting us fill each box with as much product as possible.” By maximizing the product-to-packaging ratio, overall waste is reduced.

Moreover, Cortez and his team also produce their own dry ice, further separating the company apart from the competition. The dry ice production process is very energy-intensive, but producing dry ice in the same facility where boxes are packaged with products means they reduce wasted dry ice which, in turn, means less energy goes into each box. By producing dry ice in-house, Delivered Cold is furthering its pledge to sustainable practices.

Growing in 2024

Delivered Cold has soft-launched as of November and will be beginning the next year with over 30 sellers. The company also hopes to host over 100 sellers by the end of 2024 — shipping over 10,000 boxes of a variety of products to consumers by December.

By merging technology, innovations, and a dedicated focus on sustainability, Delivered Cold gives customers what they want and makes shopping for a variety of products easy and accessible.

Business

High Volume, High Value: The Business Logic Behind Black Banx’s Growth

Published

4 days ago

June 16, 2025

Matthew Wiles

In fintech, success no longer hinges on legacy prestige or brick-and-mortar branches—it’s about speed, scale, and precision. Black Banx, under the leadership of founder and CEO Michael Gastauer, has exemplified this model, turning its high-volume approach into high-value results.

The company’s Q1 2025 performance tells the story: $1.6 billion in pre-tax profit, $4.3 billion in revenue, and 9 million new customers added, bringing its total customer base to 78 million across 180+ countries.

But behind the numbers lies a carefully calibrated business model built for exponential growth. Here’s how Black Banx’s strategy of scale is redefining what profitable banking looks like in the digital age.

Scaling at Speed: Why Volume Matters

Unlike traditional banks, which often focus on deepening relationships with a limited set of customers, Black Banx thrives on breadth and transactional frequency. Its digital infrastructure supports onboarding millions of users instantly, with zero physical presence required. Customers can open accounts within minutes and transact across 28 fiat currencies and 2 cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin and Ethereum) from anywhere in the world.

Each customer interaction—whether it’s a cross-border transfer, crypto exchange, or FX transaction—feeds directly into Black Banx’s revenue engine. At scale, these micro-interactions yield macro results.

Real-Time, Global Payments at the Core

One of Black Banx’s most powerful value propositions is real-time cross-border payments. By enabling instant fund transfers across currencies and countries, the platform removes the frictions associated with SWIFT-based systems and legacy banking networks.

This service, used by individuals and businesses alike, generates:

Volume-based revenue from transaction fees
Exchange spreads on currency conversion
Premium service income from business clients managing international payroll or vendor payments

With operations in underserved regions like Africa, South Asia, and Latin America, Black Banx is not only increasing volume—it’s tapping into fast-growing financial ecosystems overlooked by legacy banks.

The Flywheel Effect of Crypto Integration

Crypto capabilities have added another dimension to the company’s high-volume model. As of Q1 2025, 20% of all Black Banx transactions involved cryptocurrency, including:

Crypto-to-fiat and fiat-to-crypto exchanges
Crypto deposits and withdrawals
Payments using Bitcoin or Ethereum

The crypto integration attracts both retail users and blockchain-native businesses, enabling them to:

Access traditional banking rails
Convert assets seamlessly
Operate with lower transaction fees than those found in standard financial systems

By being one of the few regulated platforms offering full banking and crypto support, Black Banx is monetizing the convergence of two financial worlds.

Optimized for Operational Efficiency

High volume is only profitable when costs are contained—and Black Banx has engineered its operations to be lean from day one. With a cost-to-income ratio of just 63% in Q1 2025, it operates significantly more efficiently than most global banks.

Key enablers of this cost efficiency include:

AI-driven compliance and customer support
Cloud-native architecture
Automated onboarding and KYC processes
Digital-only servicing without expensive physical infrastructure

The outcome is a platform that not only scales, but does so without sacrificing margin—each new customer contributes to profit rather than diluting it.

Business Clients: The Value Multiplier

While Black Banx’s massive customer base is largely consumer-driven, its business clients are high-value accelerators. From SMEs and startups to crypto firms and global freelancers, businesses use Black Banx for:

International transactions
Multi-currency payroll
Crypto-fiat settlements
Supplier payments and invoicing

These clients tend to:

Transact more frequently
Use a broader range of services
Generate significantly higher revenue per user

Moreover, Black Banx’s API integrations and tailored enterprise solutions lock in these clients for the long term, reinforcing predictable and scalable growth.

Monetizing the Ecosystem, Not Just the Account

The genius of Black Banx’s model is that it monetizes not just accounts, but entire customer journeys. A user might:

Onboard in minutes
Deposit funds from a crypto wallet
Exchange currencies
Pay an overseas vendor
Withdraw to a local bank account

Each of these actions touches a different monetization lever—FX spread, transaction fee, crypto conversion, or premium service charge. With 78 million customers doing variations of this at global scale, the cumulative financial impact becomes immense.

Strategic Expansion, Not Blind Growth

Unlike many fintechs that chase customer acquisition without a clear monetization path, Black Banx aligns its growth with strategic market opportunities. Its expansion into underbanked and high-demand markets ensures that:

Customer acquisition costs stay low
Services meet genuine needs (e.g., cross-border income, crypto access)
Revenue per user grows over time

It’s not just about acquiring more customers—it’s about acquiring the right customers, in the right markets, with the right needs.

The Future Belongs to Scalable Banking

Black Banx’s ability to transform high-volume engagement into high-value profitability is more than just a fintech success—it’s a signal of what the future of banking looks like. In a world where agility, efficiency, and inclusion define competitive advantage, Black Banx has created a blueprint for digital banking dominance.

With $1.6 billion in quarterly profit, nearly 80 million users, and services that span the globe and the blockchain, the company is no longer just scaling—it’s compounding. Each new user, each transaction, and each feature builds upon the last.

This is not the story of a bank growing.

This is the story of a bank accelerating.