Show me the money! How Bloom & Wild raised funding
Posted: Thu 24th Mar 2016
In a series of monthly posts, supported by GoCardless, Enterprise Nation is featuring companies that have raised money.
We're asking the founders to tell us how they went about it and to share tips for other business owners considering doing the same.
Next up is Aron Gelbard, founder of Bloom & Wild, the innovative company that delivers flowers through the letterbox.
How old is your business?
We started work on Bloom & Wild almost three years ago and started selling flowers a little over two years ago
How much money did you raise?
We've raised a total of £3.5m across two seed rounds from angel investors and then a venture capital round last summer
Why did you raise the funds?
We had received strong early feedback from early customers that loved what we were doing, especially making it simpler to order flowers, and delivering them through the letterbox. We wanted to improve the experience (both our technology and the flowers themselves) and we wanted to to offer our product to more people. We knew that this would require raising money.
What was your secret to success in raising the money?
I think we were just really honest about what had worked, what hadn't work, what feedback we had from customers, what we wanted to test and how much it would cost. I think our investors appreciated our honesty and the clarity of our plans.
What surprised you most about the fundraising process?
It took much longer than we expected. Everyone told us it would so we allowed longer, but we should have allowed even longer.
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What one tip would you offer to anyone else looking to raise funds?**
Start early and try to work out how much you need to prove the next thing you're trying to learn or prove.
Show me the money! is supported by GoCardless, a simple way to take recurring payments and to get paid on time, every time.
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