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The female-led Jordan-based try before you buy (TBYB) E-commerce platform BLOOM has successfully raised its first angel investment, officially positioning itself in the Jordanian market after only two months of graduating from the renowned Founder Institute.
Founded in early 2021 amidst the global pandemic, founder Hanan Shahin managed to find an opportunity within a very challenging climate by introducing the TBYB concept to the Jordanian market. BLOOM successfully bridges the gap between physical and online shopping through its online platform, allowing customers to try on the clothes they have ordered online in the comfort of their own homes before having to pay for them, while also offering the option of easily returning the items they do not like with a click of a button. The wide variety of items on BLOOM’s e-commerce platform is all from a carefully curated list of original international brand outlets.
Bloom offers solutions to the existing challenges of reverse logistics, which negatively impact operations and burden the purchasing experience with inconvenient obstacles. The flexibility of the TBYB model allows customers to try on multiple items with a variety of sizes and colors before buying them without extra fees, which in return ensures higher levels of customer satisfaction, decreases return rates, while also decreasing the negative environmental impact of material waste due to the piling up of unwanted items at the back of customer’s closets. Commenting on this milestone for BLOOM, founder and CEO Hanan Shahin said, “Closing this angel round is a key milestone in Bloom’s journey, It’s one thing to have a successful MVP that generates revenue, but the real deal starts with a product, this fund will allow us to have our first product ready by the end of this year, fully automated, which will enable us to grow our team and operations furthermore.”
Aiming to accelerate its progress, BLOOM has partnered with the existing institutional support of the ecosystem right from the start. It began with founder Hanan Shahin graduating from Founder Institute Levant, while also signing an incubation agreement with The Tank, Umniah’s Entrepreneurship Incubator, and joining forces with RelativelyFund, one of Mena’s very first Venture Studios as an institutional co-founder, leveraging their proprietary process, network, recourses and capital to design consumer tech ventures. Reaping the fruits of months of hard work and determination, BLOOM has also won a $20K grant during the Queen Rania Award for Entrepreneurship.
Collectively, the TBYB model has tripled the AVO (average order value), which allowed the startup to sign deals with more esteemed European brands in a manner that further enriched customers’ shopping experience and expanded BLOOM’s collection. Launching its full operations in November of this year, BLOOM is also planning to go regional and expand in bigger markets in the upcoming years, which is now possible due to its newly acquired funds. Shahin concluded“One of the best things about this round, is that it is by female investors, which is also very rare within the entrepreneurial ecosystem, it’s not only rare to have female founders, but even much harder to have female investors. We are proud to be females supported by females.”
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