Blooom has announced the close of a $4 million Series A round of funding. The round was led by QED Investors, an investor in companies such as Credit Karma, SoFi, Prosper and Braintree.
“We’ve seen great growth by word of mouth with very little spent in marketing, and we want to expand quickly,” said Greg Smith, President of blooom. According to Smith, the raise will be used to grow their team and expand their sales and marketing efforts.
Other investors include DST Systems Inc, Commerce Ventures, Hyde Park Venture Partners and UMB.
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Blooom was launched in 2014 by Randy AufDerHeide, Kevin Conard and Chris Costello. The company provides automated 401(k) management with a simple user interface and a flat “Netflix-style” pricing.
Blooom is based out of Leawood, Kansas.
Last year blooom won Best of Show at FinovateFall in New York City. This year they were a finalist at Startup VooDoo in Saint Louis, and in September they won a $50,000 LaunchKC grant.
Blooom now manages more than $110 million and reached this milestone two to three times as fast the other major robo-advisors, such as Wealthfront and Betterment, with no outside capital raised up to that point, according to Maureen Welsh, Blooom’s director of public relations.
“We think there’s a lot of group think that goes on in Silicon Valley and on the East Coast,” said Smith. “We’re unique in having launched in KC. Being in the middle of the country, we’re not as subject to the ‘follow the herd’ mentality, and we think we’re seeing the problem more clearly.”
