Florist site smells sweet with backing of £1.3m
FLORISMART, an online flower market for florists across Europe, has secured £1.3 million through the private equity growth investor Beaubridge under the Enterprise Investment Scheme.
The website brings together exporters, wholesalers, and growers in one transparent marketplace, enabling florists to buy direct from a variety of sources and save up to 20 per cent on cost as layers of the supply chain are removed.
Chief executive Steve France, who sits on the board of the British Florist Association, said: ‘I have been in the industry for 15 years, but my background is business analysis and data. I worked for a large insurer, but the flower industry attracted me because there’s a lot of data.
‘I set up Arena Flowers, one of London’s largest florists, with a friend in 2006. In about 2008 we were contacted by the likes of Moonpig asking if we could do their bouquets. It got massive and we were doing about £10 million a year in turnover.
‘And then I was having to fly to Kenya and Columbia and really get to understand the industry in a different way. I had the idea for Florismart because when you are buying that quantity – we were buying about 100,000 a week in flowers – it puts you in a really good position. Exporters would just compete for my business.’
With the aim of decreasing reliance on European flower imports, Florismart also plans to put logistics in place to link florists with local growers. Florismart now has 850 independent florists signed up.