FLOWERBX, an online, wholesale, flower-delivery service, has closed a GBP4.2 million (USD5.5m US) fundraising round. The new funding will pave the way for the company’s US launch, scheduled for May 2019.
This follows a successful raise of GBP1.5 million of seed equity in 2017, which was used to invest in a highly-scalable technology infrastructure and expansion into a number of key European regions, including France, Belgium, Ireland, Germany and the Netherlands.
The new round of funding comes from a small group of family offices and angel investors, including original and new investors. These include some of Britain’s most successful entrepreneurs and business leaders including Natalie Massenet and Carmen Busquets of Net-a-Porter, Zoopla and LoveFilm founder Alex Chesterman, and entrepreneur Rupert Hambro CBE.
The award-winning business, which launched in London in April 2015, has achieved incredible growth in the past two years: 125 per cent in 2017 and 131 per cent in 2018, and has been billed as one of the most promising businesses in the USD50 billion retail flower market (North America and Europe – with expected annual growth of 2 per cent over the next five years.)
FLOWERBX is the first global flower brand that is fundamentally changing the way that individuals and businesses purchase flowers.
In addition to FLOWERBX’s London operations, the company has sales operations throughout the UK. Through its logistics hubs in the Netherlands and France, it further delivers fresh flowers and related accessories across France, Belgium, Germany and Ireland.
Whitney Bromberg Hawkings, FLOWERBX’s CEO and Co-founder, says: “We’ve utilised our funds over the past four years to create a sound business and brand with operational scalability. We have built an unparalleled technical and supply chain model that provides a profitable route to market. This has fuelled significant consumer sales across all the regions we currently operate in, and is at the very core of the market opportunity which we untapped.”
“We will be using the new capital to venture into new markets such as the US whilst further expanding throughout Europe. It’s a testimony to the FLOWERBX team that our original investors contributed to the new fundraise, as well being able to attract new investors.”