In early 2015 the company raised $2.5 million in a seed round and the latest round lifts the amount they have raised to $12.1 million.
Colu pivoted from their focus on colored coins technology to a specific use case that was the most in-demand among its users which is to target local currencies that help small businesses and improve local economic growth by eliminating the dependence of the business on the bank or credit card company and make a direct path between buyer and seller
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.
Colu CEO Amos Meiri told 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.”
“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.”
Founded in 2014 and based in Tel Aviv, Colu has 24 staff will grow its workforce to 30.
