Dom Pym and Envato founders back climate investment fintech Bloom in $525,000 Seed round
Brisbane fintech Bloom Impact Investing has raised $525,000 in seed round led by Up-bank co-founder Dom Pym, with Envato founders Collis and Cyan Ta’eed doubling down on the investment app.
In a sign of the changing times, the funding is less than Bloom’s $675,000 pre-seed raise in October 2021.
That round was led by Climate Technology Startup Accelerator and Innovation Network, EnergyLab with Ta’eeds, ACAC Innovation, Palm Beach Ventures and NOAB Ventures are also chipping in. Pym came on board the latest raise through his family office, Euphemia, and also brought financial industry wisdom to the table for Bloom’s climate-focused mobile investment app.
The grant is for business development, rent and operational development.
Founded in 2019 by Camille Socquet-Clerc and Bertrand Caron, the Bloom app makes it easier for retail investors to make impact investments. They can invest in a diversified portfolio (or mutual fund) of clean energy infrastructure (such as solar farms) and cleantech companies, with as little as $100.
Socquet-Clerc, Bloom’s CEO, said it now has $1.6 million in funds under management.
“I wanted to invest in sustainable and climate-positive investments, but most opportunities were limited to wholesale and institutional investors by buying into individual stocks,” she said.
“We’ve created a diversified and liquid portfolio to allow all Australians to invest in and benefit from the clean energy transition. Simply put, our platform doesn’t put all our customers’ eggs in one basket, nor do we lock up their money for long periods of time .
“We invest in concrete companies and infrastructure projects that cover over 50 different climate solutions that provide real, measurable climate impact.”
“Due to the large amount of greenwashing in financial services, this turned out to be a bigger challenge than we first expected,” Socquet-Clerc said.
“It has forced us to apply a rigorous scientific method to our investment decisions. This means going much further than investing in a couple of solar and wind stocks and supporting solutions with deep decarbonisation potential across all industries such as geothermal energy, wetland protection, metal recycling or low-carbon cement.”
Envato CEO Collis Ta’eed said: “We’ve been really impressed to see how much the Bloom team has done in just one short year, launching a product, attracting ordinary Australians to collectively invest over $1.6 million, and build a portfolio of consistent and impactful investments”
