Freddie’s Flowers raises almost £5m from customers and investors by selling its first ‘flower bonds’
After a year of explosive growth, Freddie’s Flowers has raised almost £5m from customers and investors by selling its first ‘flower bonds’.
The subscription and delivery firm had aimed to make £2m. But it raked in £4.8m from the six-week funding round, which closed last month.
Backers include Keith Abel, head of the food group Abel & Cole, for whom Freddie’s Flowers founder Freddie Garland used to work.
In full bloom: Freddie’s Flowers, founded by Freddie Garland (pictured), has been one of the so-called ‘lockdown winners’
Investors had to put in £2,500 – but more than 50 committed at least £25,000. The four-year flower bond offers twice-yearly cash payments worth 5 per cent of their investment or regular boxes of flowers worth 7.5 per cent.
Freddie’s Flowers has been one of the so-called ‘lockdown winners’ after the number of subscribers to its weekly delivery service rose from 60,000 to more than 100,000.
It offers a £25-a-week subscription for bouquets buyers assemble themselves, and sells one-off boxes at £28.
Garland, 32, founded it in a gazebo in his parents’ garden in 2014, and now delivers 40,000 boxes weekly and makes £3.3m a month in the UK.
In October, it launched in Germany, where it already has 2,000 customers.