Professor Dan Ariely Joins Colu as Chief Behavioral Officer

Thursday, 02/11/2017 | 08:58 GMT by Avi Mizrahi

Also joining Colu as an adviser is Bradley Tusk, serial entrepreneur and Uber’s political strategist.

Professor Dan Ariely Joins Colu as Chief Behavioral Officer — Dan Ariely, professor of psychology and behavioral economics (Reuters)

Colu, a Blockchain startup for localized Cryptocurrencies , announced today the plans for a crowdsale for its Colu Local Network token (CLN). Colu is currently on track to close a token pre-sale with financial backing from contributors including Spark Capital, Aleph VC, Tom Glocer former CEO of Thomson Reuters, and renowned behavioral economics expert Professor Dan Ariely, who will also join Colu as the company’s Chief Behavioral Officer. Also joining the company as an adviser is Bradley Tusk, serial entrepreneur and Uber’s political strategist.

Colu has already grown thriving user communities in four local economies in the UK and Israel and facilitates over 50,000 financial transactions per month. The company has also already raised $12 million from traditional venture capital investors with the goal of using blockchain technology to tackle real world challenges starting with local economies and the monetary systems that power their growth. The token sale is meant to bolster the company’s efforts to expand to new communities, with plans to expand to new countries in the near term.

Dan Ariely, Chief Behavioral Officer at Colu, said: “Colu is leveling the playing field between local communities and larger institutions, giving them the opportunity to accelerate their growth while generating cooperation built on mutual trust and shared successes.”

Amos Meiri, CEO and co-founder of Colu, said: “This token sale highlights the global demand for new financial solutions that enable anyone to get in on the ground floor of a big idea. The Colu Local Network is about taking part in your local economy and helping it grow. We’re letting people put their money where their community is by making blockchain-based assets more accessible and by providing tools to help them onboard to a local payment network.”

Eden Shochat, Equal Partner at Aleph VC, said: “Colu’s technology is fostering a new decentralized financial system that will redistribute power back to the local economies by allowing individuals and businesses to take control of their own finances without middlemen,” said Eden Shochat, Equal Partner at Aleph VC. “as a venture capital firm already invested in the company, we are excited to continue putting our money where our mouth is by taking part in this new paradigm of community building from the wallet up.”

Santo Politi, co-founder and General Partner at Spark Capital, said: “Colu is building a new payment network for fiat money that will replace clearing companies and payment gateways. Instead of subjecting consumers and businesses to superfluous fees, the Colu network will use cryptocurrencies to distribute the savings back to the network’s stakeholders.”