Israeli bitcoin startup Colu snags $2.5 mln seed

Israeli bitcoin startup Colu has received $2.5 million in seed funding. Aleph and Spark Capital led the round with participation from other investors that included BoxGroup and Bitcoin Opportunity Corp.

PRESS RELEASE

TEL AVIV – JAN 27, 2015 – COLU, a platform using Bitcoin blockchain technology, today announced that it has raised a $2.5 million seed round of funding led by Aleph and Spark Capital, and including BoxGroup and Bitcoin Opportunity Crop. The funding will go toward building a platform that uses blockchain technology to provide unique access to everyday purchases and possessions.

Blockchain technology verifies the ownership of every bitcoin amount ever distributed and because of this function is becoming known as an increasingly secure and reliable, distributed platform. This foundation is a dynamic tool for all kinds of people and needs. As millennials and baby boomers’ interests around shared possessions, personal spending and simple access to valued experiences are converging, they’re looking for a secure platform to access their assets and digital profiles. This greater connectivity also decreases the likelihood of security breaches and misuse of access. COLU’s Colored Coins implementation leverages the blockchain to build a platform that confirms the purchase and enables the use of everyday items.

“There’s so much complexity in our everyday lives,” said COLU Co-founder and CEO Amos Meiri. “Our goal at COLU is to use the blockchain’s ability to safely enable access to everything from online purchases to opening the front door of our vacation stay and locking the door of the car that brought us there. It’s a broad spectrum of uses but completely possible using blockchain validation and security.”

The founding team behind COLU has deep knowledge of the both depth and breadth of these applications given their previous work with Colored Coins. Colored Coins is an open standard that helped shape the current evolution of Bitcoin 2.0. The team leading COLU includes Amos Meiri, David Ring and Mark Smargon.

“The team behind COLU has been a thought and implementation leader of Colored Coins, the first viable Bitcoin 2.0 platform,” said Eden Shochat, equal partner at Aleph. “We’ve been fortunate to invest in an incredible team that’s committed to delivering on the broader promise of Bitcoin.”

“An astounding 50 billion devices are predicted to be connected in the next five years. This increased connectivity between our assets, devices and physical possessions is convenient, but it also opens us up to a number of security risks,” said Spark Capital Co-founder and General Partner Santo Politi. “We saw how COLU’s technology could help solve this problem and transform the everyday online experience by allowing users to easily and securely access their purchases and possessions on a first-of-its kind platform.”

There is a growing list of ways COLU will be able to simplify everyday interactions on- and offline. Currently in beta, COLU will be releasing a more public build in the second quarter of 2015.

About COLU
COLU is a blockchain platform for consumers and developers providing secure access to everyday consumer purchases, accessories and experiences. The founding team started ColoredCoins.org, the open source standard for issuing assets on the Bitcoin block chain, a leader in Bitcoin 2.0. More information on COLU can be found on www.COLU.co

About Aleph
Aleph invests in and support Israeli technology startups as they scale into the global market. The venture capital firm was founded by Michael Eisenberg and Eden Shochat, previously of Benchmark Capital and Face.com respectively, in July 2013. As Israeli companies are known for their different approach, so is Aleph. Gain insight at aleph.vc.

About Spark Capital
Spark Capital is a venture capital firm that partners with imaginative entrepreneurs who are driven to move people with the products and experiences they create. We invest in startups that make products and services for consumers as well as business people. We are proud supporters of companies such as 1stDibs, AdMeld, Oculus, Superpedestrian, Tumblr, Twitter, Warby Parker, and Wayfair. We have offices in the Back Bay in Boston, SoHo in New York City and SoMa in San Francisco. Spark Capital manages nearly $2 billion across five funds. For more information, visit www.sparkcapital.com.