80. Floom

Founders: Lana Elie
Founded: July 2015 (Launched February 2016)
Website: www.floom.com

Working as a PA at Burberry where she was tasked with sending “a lot of flowers”, Lana Elie was amazed at the lack of options for sending “beautifully crafted bouquets”. She found the process of giving billing, delivery and card details time-consuming and tedious.

Frustrated, she decided to leave the corporate world behind to launch a start-up venture which would provide a necessary solution; a concept which would later become Floom.

Launched in February 2016, Floom is a single place online marketplace which connects users to the best independent florists in the UK – think Etsy for flowers.

The platform’s ‘florist dashboard’ allows florists to upload pictures of their products and select stock quantity, meaning customers buy exactly what they see in the photos. This also means the business doesn’t have to maintain a perishable stock and can, instead, rely on the skills and brand profiles of its partners, leaving it time to focus on the platform technology.

Keeping 20% of the retail price of each transaction, Floom has already amassed a list of high-profile customers including the BBC, Jamie Oliver Ltd, ITV, News, McKinsey, King, Conde Nast and Hearst.

Having just closed a £580,000 crowdfunding campaign on Crowdcube, following an earlier £300,000 angel investment round, Elie aims to sign 500 new florists by the end of 2017 and develop “some unique tech offerings” to support Floom’s nationwide growth plan.

Modest ambitions for an entrepreneur who has also managed to juggle running start-up with writing business blogs about her entrepreneurial journey!

Ultimately, Elie wants to see Floom become the place to go to send flowers from a local independent florist anywhere in the world. Watch this space…