Bloomthat, the “Uber-For-Flowers,” Pulls In $2M From SV Angel, Ashton Kutcher

Bloomthat, the Y Combinator-backed startup that delivers flowers in San Francisco Bay Area in less than 90 minutes, just picked up $2 million in seed funding.

Their new backers include SV Angel, Ashton Kutcher and Guy Oseary’s A-Grade Investments, Joe Montana, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian and Y Combinator partner Garry Tan, Ron Rofe, Oliver Jung and Baron Davis.

The San Francisco-based startup offers four bouquets of tulips, anemones, roses and more or two succulents to have hand-delivered in San Francisco or Silicon Valley. They range from $35 to $65, and they’re throwing in two bouquets for Valentine’s Day in two weeks.

“We’re trying to change the way people think about flowers — that they’re not obligatory,” said co-founder Matthew Schwab.

The startup, which just launched an iOS app, tries to take the friction out of delivering flowers so that customers won’t just think of them solely for birthdays or anniversaries. Schwab added that sales are doubling every other month.

When you order from Bloomthat, you pick a bouquet, enter in the destination address and your payment information, then a florist will put the selection together and a bike messenger will deliver it in an hour and half. Down on the peninsula in Palo Alto, Mountain View, Menlo Park and Sunnyvale, Bloomthat relies on cars, not bikes. They’ll be expanding to other metropolitan areas soon too.

Bloomthat’s flowers are delivered in burlap sacks or corrugated tins and the company has spent hours working on an aesthetic that’s not too formal and a little bit offbeat. The Valentine’s Day combinations (pictured below) aren’t just your classic bouquet of red roses and baby’s breath.

bloomthat-valentines-day-the-belden

“We believe very strongly in the curation we put into our products,” Schwab said. “We want simplicity, and we don’t want people choosing from 30 or 40 bouquets.”

He said that customers typically order two bouquets in their first 60 days. Bloomthat is profitable per unit, but the company hasn’t reached bottom-line profitability yet.

“We’re optimizing for ridiculous growth and happy people,” Schwab said.