Flower Vendor Hits Pay Dirt in C Round

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Online flower seller Bouqs Co. has raised a $24 million Series C round of capital led by Partech Ventures.

The farm-direct online retailer said it had reached an average annual growth rate of 200 percent, though the company did not disclose how much revenue was generated last year. Its latest financing will be spent on marketing, supply chain technology, a new headquarters in Venice, and additional hires.

Bouqs sources flowers from farms in the United States, Ecuador, Colombia, and Costa Rica. It also offers same-day flower delivery sourced from local florists.

The company rose to prominence after its founder and chief executive, John Tabis, walked away empty-handed from an investor pitch on ABC reality show “Shark Tank” in 2014. Bouqs has raised $43 million since its founding in 2012, including a $12 million Series B round last February.

Mark Menell, a general partner at San Francisco-based Partech, will join Bouqs’ board as part of the deal. Other new investors include NextEquity Partners of Menlo Park and Venice’s Reimagined Ventures. Previous investors such as Azure Capital Partners, KEC Ventures, Quest Venture Partners, and “Shark Tank” investor Robert Herjavec, all upped their stake in the company. Herjavec took a stake after Tabis appeared on the show.

The company’s $1.1 million seed round included investments from Quest; Siemer Ventures in Santa Monica; and angel investors Mich Mathews, former chief marketing officer at Microsoft Corp.; Dennis Phelps, a partner at Institutional Venture Partners; Andy Dunn, founder of e-commerce company Bonobos; and Brian Spaly, founder of online fashion company Trunk Club.

Los Angeles is a hothouse of online flower selling companies, including Wonderful Co.’s Teleflora and startup BloomNation, backed by venture firm Andreessen Horowitz. FTD Cos. Inc., based in Downers Grove, Ill., was merged with B. Riley Financial’s United Online subsidiary in 2008 and was spun off into a separate publicly traded entity in 2013.

– Garrett Reim

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