A New Flower Delivery Service Blooms in Boston
From left, David Daneshgar, Gregg Weisstein, and Farbod Shoraka, founders of BloomNation. Photo provided.
New to the Boston region, BloomNation is a marketplace (a la Etsy), where local florists can create a profile and sell their products online. Shoppers love it because of thoughtful extras like the “BloomSnap,” a photo of the bouquet as it goes out for delivery.
“There are these marketplaces that bring a local business that probably couldn’t get discovered otherwise and puts them on a national, global scale,” says David Daneshgar, cofounder and head of sales and development,, who was recently in town for BloomNation’s launch party.
The LA-based company started in 2011 with $30,000 in poker winnings. “It’s flower time,” said Daneshgar to his partners as he clinched the tournament with a two pair of Queens and nines (Daneshgar is a Texas Hold‘em world poker champion). His background in business school, plus Farbod Shoraka’s experience in banking, combined with Gregg Weisstein’s work in consulting make the three friends from undergrad a triple threat.
“We want you to know who the artist is, we want to bring them out, because then not only do you see that human element, but they are then giving you their best work because they’re face, their name, their Yelp is on the line. We’ve changed the way culpability and transparency affects flowers,” says Daneshgar.
After their initial poker winnings, the company secured $1.65 million in seed funding from venture capitalists including Spark Capital in Boston. These days, BloomNation is undercutting the flower delivery market by offering florists 90 percent of profits, a margin that’s practically unheard of. The company has quickly expanded to larger markets including Las Vegas, Chicago, and San Francisco. This summer, the start-up made its East Coast debut in Washington, D.C., and more recently in Boston. Daneshgar says Boston was their most successful launch party to date, and not just because the owners of Back Bay Florist took them out for bottle service at Bijou. Over 25 local flower shops and more than 100 people came to learn about the alternative floral delivery service.
Up next, the company is looking to raise more capital to roll out increased digital features including a phone app, which is urrently in beta. Down the line, customers will be able to track flower delivery trucks akin to the technology used by Uber.
Meet your local florists online at bloomnation.com.
