Colombian fintech Zulu secured a $5 million seed round led by Cadenza Ventures, a venture capital fund that invests in early-stage fintechs in emerging economies like Africa, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. Other investors include Nexo, CMT Digital, Simplex, Coin DCX, Gaingels, and founders of startups such as Caterine Castillo of Neivor; José Jair Bonilla, Carolina Garcia and Oscar Sarria of Chiper; Andrew Chang, former COO and Advisor of Paxos; Man Hei Lou of Treinta, among others.
Users of Zulu’s mobile app -which was initially only on Android and now is also available on iOS – can buy the stable cryptocurrency USDC (considered digital dollars as each token is backed by an existing dollar).
Founded in December 2021 by Esteban Villegas, Jaime Varela and Julian Delgado, the fintech seeks to position itself as the leading digital wallet in Latin America for users who want to save in digital dollars, protect their money from devaluation and send remittances to different countries directly from their cell phones.
Cadenza has been investing in emerging markets since 2018. The current macro environment has strengthened our view that globalizing currencies and financial assets will continue to be a generational trend for years to come.
“I’m proud to announce our latest LatAm investment in Zulu with participation from CMT Digital, Simplex, CoinDCX, Nexo, Gaingels, and others”, said Max Shapiro, Managing Partner of Cadenza in LinkedIn.
The digital wallet, which originally operated in Colombia and Venezuela, is now active in Mexico and Peru, pursuing the digital remittances market between these countries.
Currently, Zulu’s mobile app has more than 100 thousand users. However, as they expand to new markets, Zulu expects to break the 500 thousand barrier before the end of the year. This after announcing its arrival to the iOS operating system, which will significantly boost its growth in the Apple user market.