There’s a heck of a lot of money to be made in flower deliveries in Southeast Asia, according to one ex-Googler from the U.S. who left the search giant in June to launch his own startup in Singapore. This is by no means bucking the trend: we’ve written before about top people at Google looking to new opportunities in Asia.
The 27-year-old Steven Feiner, who worked as a San Fransisco and Singapore-based “Problem Solver” at Google for three years in corporate strategy and data analytics, says he’s dipping his toes in a $2.5 billion regional opportunity. Feiner just launched his flower-delivery startup, A Better Florist, at the end of September, and it’s currently in the midst of closing a $500,000 angel round.
In the barely four weeks since launch, business is going well. Cashflow and unit-economics-positive from day one, Feiner and his three cofounders say they’re standing out from the competition by delivering flowers sourced from nearby Malaysia (the Cameron Highlands, specifically) that are just 2-4 days old when they reach customers — that’s compared to 10-16 days old for most flowers in the market today.
While $2.5 billion may seem like a surprisingly large market for the largely-emerging Southeast Asia region of 600 million people, the flower market globally is actually worth around $60 billion, according to Feiner. 1800 Flowers and FTD, with $1.12 billion and $1.27 billion in revenues last year respectively, are leading the charge.
The established market leader out here by all accounts is Far East Flora (FEF), with one industry source telling VentureBeat they saw “several hundred million dollars” in revenue last year. But FEF is still lagging on the mobile experience, and deliveries take up to four hours. Feiner wants to start offering guaranteed 90-minute deliveries at no extra charge in the coming months (the option will be available at check-out).
In the first week, A Better Florist saw 35 orders, and is gunning to hit 100 orders in its fourth week. After two years, it wants to be seeing 1,000 order per day, with expansion plans for Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) and Bangkok (Thailand). BloomThat reportedly does around 500 orders per day in San Fransisco alone.
“There is nothing I wouldn’t do for our customers,” Feiner told VentureBeat in an interview. “If we have to jump in an Uber to deliver our flowers on time, then we will. We are huge fans of doing things that don’t scale.” A cash-on-delivery option will be rolled out soon, and a Valentine’s Day campaign with Uber Singapore is in the pipeline, as well as a 1,000-rose-giveaway with regional dating app Paktor for Single’s Day on November 11.
Above: A Better Florist cofounder Steven Feiner
There’s actually quite a lot of venture capital-backing going on in the flower-delivery space. Feiner points to funding from top-tier investors including Y Combinator, SV Angel, and actor-turned-angel Ashton Kutcher (see here). Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz lead a $5.5 million Series A into BloomNation in October last year. There’s a few more notable examples (see the end of this article).
In all, about seven flower-delivery startups have raised nearly $40 million in the last 18 months, with $30 million of that coming in just the last 12 months. And that’s not limited to the U.S. — it includes startups from Europe and Asia.
There’s also a few notable mergers and acquisitions going on. Roses Only was bought for $30 million last year in February by FlowersCorp, Proflowers for $430 million last year in July by FTD, and Harry’s & David for $143 million last year in September by 1800 Flowers.
Looking a bit longer term, A Better Florist hopes that one outcome may be to emerge as a $100-million acquisition target within three years, assuming Feiner and the team can execute as it grows — if not by a regional player, then perhaps by one of the bigger boys globally that wants to expand their footprint into Southeast Asia.
So, just another Googler-turns-entrepreneur jumping on an opportunity in the growing on-demand economy that all the big tech companies are eyeing? Or the birth of Singapore’s next success story? As that tired old cliché goes, we really will have to wait and see. But certainly one to watch out for. (It’s still mobile-optimized web only, with no mobile app planned.)
Oh, and here’s some of those other notable flower-delivery startups that have landed funding lately:
The Bouqs (U.S.) — $6 million Series A in June 2014.
Urban Stems (U.S.) — $1.5 million seed in February 2015.
Bloom & Wild (U.K.) — $3.9 million Series A in July 2015.
Bloomon (Netherlands) — $4 million Series A in Sept 2015
RoseOnly (China) — $10 million Series A at a $100 million valuation in November 2014.
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