20 Things You Didn’t Know about Bloom
Bloom, aka Bloom Financial, is a London, England-based startup that has made business news recently with its most recent round of venture capital fundraising. The enterprise focuses on helping digital brands with founder-friendly capital and tools solutions for accelerating growth and unlocking the full potential of the business. If you’ve not year heard of Bloom, don’t feel bad. It’s only been in operation since 2020. It’s a new startup that offers tremendous potential for new digital startups that need a little help in becoming established. To familiarize you with the company and bring you up to speed, here are twenty things you probably didn’t know about Bloom.
1. Bloom is a financial institution
Techcrunch confirms that Bloom is a lender that offers a unique pricing model. It is a revenue-based lender. Bloom offers its clients pay-as-you-go features. The goal of Bloom is to offer the tools and finances for founders to grow their digital companies at a lower rate than most other lenders.
2. Bloom helps educate consumers
Bloom discovered that e-commerce merchants are charged excessive fees. They spend millions on these fees that could otherwise be spent on business-related endeavors to benefit their companies instead of lining the pockets of lenders. Bloom was created to provide solutions that help defray the excess fees for online commerce companies throughout Europe. The technology and services the platform offers help them to move their products forward with powerful analytics to give them a more effective approach.
3. Bloom was originally founded in Luxembourg
James Hickson is the chief executive officer of Bloom. He shared that Bloom was founded in Luxembourg originally. It’s a company that was spawned at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic when online options were becoming the most viable for homebound masses who were afraid to leave their homes for fear of infection. The company has since moved its headquarters to London, England, in the United Kingdom. It offers an alternative and innovative way to help e-commerce companies grow with less expense.
4. Bloom is still in its infancy
Crunchbase confirms that Bloom launched in 2020. The company has only been in existence for two years. It is listed in the categories of financial services, fintech, and banking. It is a type of accelerator that helps startups get their companies up and running and firmly established.
5. Bloom is in the process of becoming established
The reputation of Bloom is difficult to gauge because of its newness. It’s still in the process of establishing itself in the financial community of Europe as a lender. Analytics for the bloom SA website show that just 165 persons visited the website within the last thirty days. The figures show some interest in the company, but not enough people know about it yet. Uniquely, all of the visitors shown in the analytics report are from Romania, where the most interest is shown in the products and services provided by Bloom.
6. Bloom is still a small operation
Bloom is in the process of growing its workforce to expand its services throughout Europe. The core leadership team listed consists of its chief executive officer James Hickson. He is joined by Werner Kruger, the chief risk and data officer at Bloom.
7. Bloom Group SA has one member on its board of directors
Although Bloom Group SA is a small and new company, it has established a board of directors. So far, the sole member of the board is Chris Dailey. Mr. Dailey is an investor and a partner with Credo Capital Partners, a group that invested in Bloom. He has made one partner investment. Chris is from Epsom, Surrey, United Kingdom. He is a business builder, investor, and asset manager. he currently serves on one board of directors in an advisory role.
8. Bloom Group SA is a venture capital-supported enterprise
Bloom, also known as Bloom Group SA, has participated in two rounds of venture capital fundraising. The most recent round of Series A fundraising concluded on May 26, 2022. Bloom has two investors, Fortress Investment Group and Credo Capital Partners. The total amount raised in the two fundraising rounds is 301 million British pounds. A large amount of the investments shows that the investors have high confidence in Bloom’s potential for producing a solid return on the investment in the months and years ahead.
9. Bloom is currently in “stealth mode”
We visited the LinkedIn page for Bloom Group SA to learn more about the company. They’ve listed themselves as currently in “stealth mode.” It helps explain why most people know so little about the organization and why so few people visit the website. We did learn far more from its LinkedIn page than from other resources on the web. Bloom lists its original founding date as 2019 instead of 2020. The disparity of a year is likely accounted for by the actual incorporation date being earlier than the company’s launch.
10. Bloom is a versatile organization
Our inquiry into the inner workings of Bloom revealed that it is a small business with lofty goals and a larger outreach than we first thought. Bloom is not only involved in finance and underwriting, but it is also involved in credit scoring, small business, data science, and partnerships. The company’s scope reaches further than what some other news websites report. Learning these new facts about Bloom prompted us to look further into its products and services.
11. Bloom has a workforce of 21 employees
Bloom is so new that even Crunchbase didn’t have a full accounting of the particulars surrounding the enterprise. They only listed two employees, but there are twenty-one. Adrian Voina is the chief operating officer in Cluj, Romania. Werner Kruger is the chief risk and data officer and a part of Bloom’s founding team. Other members of the team are not listed by their names. It also employs an engineering manager at Cluj-Napoca and a software engineer. A chief technology officer of Bloom Financial Group is in the Saint Petersburg metropolitan region. The head of finance and founding team member is in London, again, not named. Others at the London headquarters include the chief marketing and sales officer for Bloom group SA, the head of lending operations at Bloom, and an operations manager in Romania.
12. Bloom has a lot of work ahead
The layout of the organizational structure is a bit confusing for most casual observers. Bloom is beginning to advertise itself, but it could be more transparent. We can see that the company has employees stationed at its headquarters in London, England. There are also executives working for various segments of Bloom in Romania and other parts of the world. We also saw additional staff listings for a head of QA, a machine learning engineer and Python instructor, a relationship manager at Bloom Group SA, a marketing and digital PR specialist, a data scientist, a relationship manager at Bloom Group SA, and more. Bloom has not yet defined its corporate structure for the rest of the world.
13. Bloom is growing its workforce
We learned that Bloom has listed new job openings for the company. They’ve advertised a total of nine new positions. They’re hiring an investment scout to work remotely within the United States. There is also an opening for an investment scout in the country of Greece. The remainder of the positions is open to qualified applicants in Romania and London. a growth of nine positions would increase the size of Bloom’s workforce by one-third.
14. Bloom is reaching out to female entrepreneurs
Bloom is currently marketing its products and services to female founders. It posted an advertisement on its LinkedIn page that discusses the initial challenges of launching a new company, also alluding to the fears it can create. Bloom also talks about the personal risks involved along with the hard work. It directs the focus toward female founders who may face additional obstacles and challenges. Bloom announces that they offer the best options and solutions by helping to map them out for female founders.
15. Bloom is advertising a one-day turnaround on loans
The official Bloom website posted advertisements for financial services. It’s offering up to £10m for qualified e-commerce businesses. The turnaround time claimed is promised at 24 hours or less. This gives founders access to fast funding if their company meets the qualifications for loan eligibility. They promise that there is no dilution, no hassle, and no personal guarantees. Recipients of the loans are promised that they can use what they need and only pay for what they use.
16. Bloom operates on a unique platform
The Bloom lending platform is user-friendly and is available online. The process involves three steps that are easy to accomplish. Bloom funding works for its customers by connecting their accounts to get them customized funding within twenty-four hours of application completion. The funding offers are generated through artificial intelligence-powered technology. The funds may be used by recipients to invest in sales, marketing, or inventory. Approved clients are allowed to access more funding when it is needed. Bloom works with e-commerce businesses with a payment system designed for digital entrepreneurs.
17. Bloom is advertising for the future
When we visited the Bloom website we found a solid informational site that offers some services in the lending industry that is currently available to new customers. We also saw new services that Bloom plans to add shortly labeled “Coming Soon.” We can expect to hear more about the new offerings as Bloom makes them available. They’re still in the process of developing some of the products and services they will offer, during their “stealth mode.” Bloom teases potential customers with a platform that will soon include payments that are effortless and offer flexible capital. Clients will have access to over 200 payment methods with simple pricing from 0.99 percent per transaction. The product will allow them to start accepting payments within fifteen minutes of agreeing to and signing up for the service.
18. Bloom is already in use
Bloom has already begun its mission to provide financial services for digital companies. It is in use throughout Europe and Australia. It specializes in providing services for e-commerce companies and software-as-a-service-based businesses. It provides unsecured capital with the smallest amount of £10K to £10M. The funds are provided through a revenue-sharing agreement. Payments on the loans are based on affordability through a percentage of debit and credit card sales. Loan recipients pay Bloom back when their customers pay them. The rate charged by Bloom is a flat daily fee but customers have the option to pay back the loans early with no penalty. Bloom does not charge interest on funding it provides.
19. Bloom is a privately held enterprise
You won’t find shares of Bloom stock for sale or trade on the public stock exchanges because they don’t exist. Bloom has not yet filed for an initial public offering. It’s not a publicly-traded organization and we’ve seen no sign of plans to go in that direction. It is privately owned by the founders. The company depends on investor fundraising for necessary capital.
20. Bloom is a company to keep your eye on
Although Bloom is still in the early stages of its development it’s off to a good start. It is an international company that offers multiple services in the financial and technical arena. Bloom has the potential for becoming a disruptor in the industry with its innovative lending solutions that provide clients with needed funding while saving their customers money on fees for their loans. Borrowers only use the funding needed to grow their businesses and they pay back the loans, obtained for a flat fee without interest, as they make sales. The next year will mark an exciting time as Bloom adds new products and services and goes into a full launch.
