Tuesday, October 7, 2014

BloomNation.com Gets $5.55M For Local Flower Delivery

Santa Monica-based BloomNation.com, the online floral arrangement marketplace headed by Farbod Shoraka, has raised $5.5M in a funding round, the company said this morning. The funding came from Ron Conway, Andreessen Horowitz, Spark Capital, and Chicago Ventures. BloomNation lets floral designers post their designs online, and then connects customers with those designers, avoiding the cookie-cutter designs currently found on floral broker sites like FTD, 1-800-Flowers, and Teleflora. Instead, BloomNation's designs reflect the unique aesthetic of local floral designers, and allows users to find local, one-of-a-kind creations to send. Gregg Weisstein, co-founder and COO of BloomNation, explains that it has seen a huge amount of traction with local florists, who have gotten the "short end of the stick" in the industry, with nearly 30 percent of them going out of business in the last few years. Weisstein explained that the company's service really enables those florists to adopt a new model for the way flowers are sold online, helping them at the local level.

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