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UK flower delivery business Bloom & Wild has bought Dutch rival Bloomon, creating the largest online business by deliveries in Europe’s £22bn market for flowers and houseplants.
The combined business expects to ship more than 8m plants and bouquets of flowers in the next year in countries including Belgium, Denmark and Germany, and has forecast revenues to exceed £200m.
Bloom & Wild, which pioneered bouquets that can fit through a letterbox, has grown rapidly since it was set up in 2013. It made just over £100m in sales in the year ending March, compared to £29m two years earlier.
“We have now quadrupled our business in Europe,” Aron Gelbard, the company’s co-founder and chief executive, told the Financial Times.
Flower delivery has blossomed while people have been unable to meet for birthdays and other occasions during the pandemic. Other companies that have benefited include greeting cards business Moonpig, which floated in London this year.
Bloom & Wild and Bloomon have both focused on building user friendly websites and apps that use customer data to personalise the shopping experience. Both have also cut out traditional middlemen from their supply chains and buy straight from growers, which Gelbard said leads to bouquets that are “better value for money, last longer and have a smaller impact on the environment”.
Bloomon, which was founded in Amsterdam in 2014, was originally a flower subscription business that has now expanded into one-off deliveries. The size of the deal, which Bloom & Wild said was financed by cash reserves, was not disclosed.
In January, Bloom & Wild raised £75m, taking its total equity raised to £96m. Shareholders include Index Ventures, one of Europe’s oldest and largest venture capital groups, and Massachusetts-based General Catalyst.
Gelbard will remain chief executive of the combined business that will go under the name of Bloom & Wild, have roughly 300 employees and operate in eight countries.
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