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 co-led by Up bank cofounder Dom Pym, with the founders of Envato, Collis and Cyan Ta’eed, doubling down on the investment app.

In a sign of the realigned times, the funding is less than Bloom’s $675,000 pre-seed raise in October 2021.

That round was led by climate tech startup accelerator and innovation network, EnergyLab with the Ta’eeds, ACAC Innovation, Palm Beach Ventures, and NOAB Ventures also chipping. Pym came on board in the latest raise through his family office, Euphemia, also bringing his finance industry wisdom to the table for Bloom’s climate-focused mobile investment app.

The cash injection is for a business development hire 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 they now have $1.6 million in funds under management.

“I wanted to invest in sustainable and climate positive investments, but most opportunities were restricted 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 the clean energy transition and benefit from it. In simple terms, our platform doesn’t put all our customers’ eggs in one basket, nor do we lock their money away for long periods of time.

“We invest in tangible companies and infrastructure projects covering over 50 different climate solutions that make real, measurable climate impact.”

“Due to the sheer amount of greenwashing in financial services, this proved to be more of a challenge than we initially anticipated,” 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 chair Collis Ta’eed said: “We’ve been really impressed to see how much the Bloom team have done in just one short year, launching a product, attracting everyday Australians to collectively invest over $1.6 million, and building out a portfolio of consequential and impactful investments”