Online wholesale flower-delivery website FLOWERBX recently closed a £1.5m seed-plus fundraising round which was oversubscribed.
The company, which sets out to change the way Londoners buy flowers, also named Mark Sebba as non-executive chairman.
Sebba, CEO of The Net-a-Porter Group from 2003-2014, is a strategic investor in the company, alongside others including Dame Natalie Massenet DBE, founder of global fashion portal Net-a-Porter.com; Carmen Busquets, luxury, fashion, and tech entrepreneur; business women Eiesha Bharti Pasricha and Tania Fares; Rose Uniacke, Founder and Creative Director of Rose Uniacke Studio; and Pat Finn, Managing Partner of Finn Capital Partners, a US-based venture capital firm.
The money will be used to accelerate expansion into new markets both within the UK and abroad, to increase innovative technological capabilities with a key focus on the customer experience, and to scale high-return customer acquisition programs. Revenues have doubled in the first quarter of 2017 compared to the same period in 2016.
FLOWERBX was co-founded by Whitney Bromberg Hawkings and Adam Wilkie in April 2015. It claims to be fundamentally changing the way that individuals and businesses purchase flowers in the £50bn global flower market. It operates a proprietary, inventory-less operating model, delivering flowers directly from the auctions in Holland, allowing it to cut out the handful of middlemen that mark the traditional bricks-and-mortar supply chain.
Sebba said: “I am delighted to be taking on the role of Chairman at FLOWERBX. It is one of London’s most promising start-ups in both its product offering, its lean business model and its dedicated and talented team. The company has clearly demonstrated its potential for growth and scalability. As Chairman of the FLOWERBX Board, I look forward to helping the brand achieve its enormous growth potential.”
