Thursday, October 24, 2013
BloomNation Raises $1.65M, Launches Online Floral Creations Marketplace
Los Angeles-based BloomNation, one of the companies in the MuckerLab accelerator, announced this morning that it has raised $1.65M in a funding round, and also launched its online marketplace for floral creations. The seed funding round came from Andreessen Horowitz, Spark Capital, Chicago Ventures, CrunchFund and MuckerLab. BloomNation, which is led by Farbod Shoraka, lets local florists post pictures of their unique flower arrangements, provides tools for those lcoal florists to interact with consumers, and allows consumers to order flower delivery. The company is looking to help local florists better differentiate themselves from the big, national floral brands, letting them sell their own designs and connect with local customers.
BloomNation is looking to upset the current model for floral delivery in the U.S., which is the dominance of big floral brands like FTD and 1-800-Flowers, who send a large volume of orders to local florists--a model which provides those florists with very slim margins, does not result in repeat customers, and which do not allow those florists to express their own individual design skills. BloomNation's tools include a feature which allows florists to share photos of arrangements with customers before they are sent; a complete, point-of-sale system and free online store; and sales analytics, marketing, and other tools.
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