Israeli blockchain startup Colu has closed a Series A financing round of $9.6m. Investors included Aleph, Spark Capital, Digital Currency Group and former Thomson Reuters CEO Tom Glocer. The latest financing round brings the amount raised by the company to $12.1 million.
Founded in 2014 and based in Tel Aviv, Colu is riding the bitcoin wave and has developed a platform for creating digital currency. This platform is based on virtual currency blockchain technology and the company is currently shifting its focus to creating local currencies that help small businesses and improve local economic growth by strengthening the connection between buyer and seller. The digital currencies created can be used without the need of an intermediary such as a bank or credit card company.
Colu has created digital currencies for two Tel Aviv neighborhoods - Jaffa and Florentin. The digital currency is linked to the shekel and is according to the company the Israeli digital equivalent of cash. The company says that its platform is already in use by municipal authorities in Barbados and Brazil.
The company has 24 employees and plans expanding its workforce to 30.
Colu CEO Amos Meiri told currency website "CoinDesk," "There are a lot of other use cases for colored coins, in music, in the Internet of Things, but what we saw after a while was that more than 60% of the use cases were for local currencies. This is where our market is."
He added, "We have the wallet and we have a control panel where the manager of the local economy can issue a distributed currency, gain access to data about the economy and manage it from one place."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on June 23, 2016
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