Cinecolor was an additive process spearheaded by the engineers Samuel James Cox, Demetre Daponte and John Hendri Dowell.

Cox was a prolific inventor of color processes in Britain, well known for his 1914 patent (GB191415648A) describing three-color toning. Later, he worked for Cinechrome Ltd, where he improved a process initially developed by Colin Noel Bennett. He proposed using 70mm film for exposing two color records, with standard apertures, side-by-side on the wide film strip. This invention was used for the only completed Cinechrome films that documented the visit of the Prince of Wales to India during 1921–22.

Romanian inventor Demetre Daponte (also known as Dimitru Daponte, Demetrius Leonida Daponte and Demetre Da Ponte) worked for Adam Hilger Ltd, an optical instruments company that was also involved in the development of Cinechrome. Daponte was known for Pulsograph, a projector for stereoscopic cinema, which he proposed in 1924 (US1714849A). The device was surprisingly similar to Cox's Cinechrome color process – however, instead of capturing two color records side-by-side, it recorded a pair of stereoscopic images side-by-side on 70mm film.

After the death of Cinechrome investor and jam industrialist Sir William Pickles Hartley in 1922, Cox and Daponte ran Cinechrome for some time. However, they later decided to form a separate company to exploit their new patents and Cinecolor Ltd was incorporated in London in 1929.

Sir Percy Malcolm Stewart, a prominent brick manufacturer, became the primary investor for the new process and D. Harrison of the Gerrard Wire Engineering Co was appointed managing director. Using the faintly patriotic slogan – “the only color process purely British in origin” – Cinecolor entered the market in late 1929 (Film Daily, 1929).

Demetre Daponte's 1930 patents (GB346406A, GB346454A) formed the basis for the newly rebranded color process. John Hendri Dowell, another Adam Hilger Ltd employee, later contributed to the refinement of the process with a series of proposed improvements to the beam-splitting prism used for two-color and three-color photography.

In February 1930, Daponte presented the process in New York. In late 1930, Warner Bros., which was using two-color Technicolor at that time but likely searching for alternatives, ordered five Cinecolor test cameras from London. Cinecolor also registered an American office as Cinecolor Company of America Inc. in Delaware. This company should not be confused with Cinecolor, Inc., the widely used subtractive two-color process with laboratories in Burbank, California.

British Cinecolor was apparently recognized at the time for its color precision and delicacy, avoiding parallax and fringing effects (Cornwell-Clyne, 1951: p. 271). However, the process is not known to have been used on any commercial productions.

In 1936, Chromex Ltd acquired the patents of Cinecolor Ltd and merged the company with its other subsidiaries Dufaycolor Ltd, Dufaycolor Corporation and Spicer-Dufay Ltd, to establish Dufay-Chromex. Daponte also joined the new company.