US-based startup Blooms has raised a $2.6 million seed round for its fintech business that provides finance, payments, and foreign exchange (FX) solutions to Latin American produce exporters that supply the US and Canada.
The company aims to provide better financial tools to these exporters in the hopes of building a stronger supply chain up and down the Americas, founder Francisco Meré tells AgFunderNews.
“Around the world, there has been an increase in consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables,” he says, adding that the US is the largest produce market in the world, with American households consuming about $100 billion of fresh produce annually.
The US imports roughly one third of its fresh fruits and vegetables. Mexico is the largest supplier followed by Guatemala and Costa Rica.
All this creates the need for “a very stable, secure and sustainable food supply chain that comes from Latin America,” says Meré.
Mexico and other Latin American countries, meanwhile, also grapple with limited access to adequate financial tools. This, combined with the next generation taking over family farms and demanding more digitization, drives the opportunity for a fintech platform like Bloom’s, he adds.
The Blooms fintech toolbox
The Blooms fintech platform includes a number of different offerings for exporters.
On the financial side, it offers “cross-border non-rigorous factoring,” where Blooms buys the receivables (aka the produce) from the exporter and assumes the credit risk on the US side. It also buys future receivables in order to provide working capital and pre-export financing for the actual production of the produce.
Its global payments and FX platform, meanwhile, was developed in partnership with US-based financial institution Monex. Through it, exporters can receive payments through the importing country’s banking system, reducing the amount of time it takes to get paid.
In earlier stages of development is the company’s data tool, which Meré says will digitize the flow of information throughout the cross-border chain. “It’s also enriching the information [exporters receive] so they can better understand the patterns of their own cashflows and forecast accordingly.”
Blooms is PACA-certified, which means the business is aligned with regulations set down by the Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act that establishes rules for fair trade practices in produce.
Investor buy-in despite trade tensions
SP Ventures led Blooms’ seed round with participation from other well-known investors including Angel Ventures, The Yield Lab Latam, Eqwow Ventures, Glocal Managers, and Mercy Corps Ventures.
“Mexico is already a top-three exporter in multiple categories, yet the financial infrastructure around this trade remains outdated and inefficient,” SP Ventures general partner Francisco Jardim wrote this week on LinkedIn. “Blooms is stepping in to fix that with AI-driven, climate-resilient trade finance solutions.”
Their participation is a vote of confidence for what Blooms is doing, particularly at a time when trade tensions and tariff uncertainties are high, notes Meré.
“One of the things we’re very happy about is having been able to get convictions from these investors to invest in these uncertain times, not only in terms of investments but uncertainty and volatility in trade.”
While acknowledging these tensions and uncertainties and their potential impact on business, Meré points to the resiliency of the agricultural sector.
The USMCA (United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement) lifts tariffs on most goods originating in Canada, Mexico and the United States, including produce from Mexico.
For other Latin American countries importing to the US, such as Colombia and Peru, where a 10% tariff exists, Meré says he is seeing “cooperative dialog between the exporters, the importers, and the retailers in terms of how to accommodate that.”
