Bloomo Investment raises JPY 800m in seed round

Bloomo Investment (Bloomo), a startup developing an asset building app focusing on US stocks/ETFs, has raised a JPY 800m seed round from investors including Spiral Capital, Global Brain, Scrum Ventures, Angel Bridge, Mitsubishi UFJ Innovation Partners, SMBC Venture Capital, Mizuho Capital, and Insignia Ventures Partners.

Bloomo intends to become Japan’s first securities firm specializing in long-term asset building offering users asset building opportunities through investing in US stocks and ETFs. Bloomo’s application to become a Type I Financial Instruments Business Operator (FIBO) is currently being processed, and the company plans to launch during the summer.

In Japan, younger generations are rapidly becoming more interested in US stock investments due to the country’s recent economic environment and uncertain future. Bloomo’s service will enable users to select US stocks/ETFs and easily create their own portfolio for regular investments, providing a full-fledged asset building environment even for beginners, including a community for users to interact with one another and an information service to help understand market trends.

In a quadrant defined by short-term (bottom) and long-term (top) investment strategies, as well as by either relying on others (left — e.g., Independent Financial Advisors [IFA]) or investing by oneself (right), Bloomo looks to support the investors managing their own finances with a long-term time horizon.

The company plans to deliver a unique product that will bring innovation in user experience such as user-friendly interfaces and functions for promoting financial literacy, aiming to provide users with more useful and easier-to-understand asset building opportunities.

• Users create an original portfolio by selecting US stocks and ETFs and setting investment allocations. Once money has been deposited into the Bloomo account, exchange and trading will be automatically performed according to the pre-configured portfolio.
• In Bloomo, users can refer to and copy each other’s portfolios within the app. And for more expert reference, one can copy public portfolios of famous investors like Warren Buffett. This allows even beginners to start building assets with confidence.
• Financial literacy is supported by providing information content that shows trends in the global economy and the US market, so users can check their asset status while acquiring new information. One can also see the opinions of other users, so there is a “social investing” angle that uses the power of social media to deepen the users’ understanding of finance.

Global Brain (GB) has stated in their own press release that it invested in Bloomo because of its talented team with a high level of expertise and insights in its market advantage and users. GB will support Bloomo in its product development and efforts to continuously provide market-leading services that accurately respond to the diverse needs of users.

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