Bloomspot Collects $40M

San Francisco-based Bloomspot, a Groupon-style daily-deals service featuring high-end restaurants, spas, boutiques, and other “experiential merchants,” said today that it has raised $35 million in Series B financing and $5 million in venture debt. Interwest Partners and Columbia Capital led the venture round, which was joined by Menlo Ventures, True Ventures, QED Investors, Harrison Metal, and individual investors Erik Blachford and Gary Parsons. Western Technology Investment provided the debt financing. Bloomspot claims to overcome drawbacks in Groupon’s daily deals model by using algorithms to predict the level of consumer spending that will result from each promotion and guaranteeing their profitability for individual merchants.

Author: Wade Roush

Between 2007 and 2014, I was a staff editor for Xconomy in Boston and San Francisco. Since 2008 I've been writing a weekly opinion/review column called VOX: The Voice of Xperience. (From 2008 to 2013 the column was known as World Wide Wade.) I've been writing about science and technology professionally since 1994. Before joining Xconomy in 2007, I was a staff member at MIT’s Technology Review from 2001 to 2006, serving as senior editor, San Francisco bureau chief, and executive editor of TechnologyReview.com. Before that, I was the Boston bureau reporter for Science, managing editor of supercomputing publications at NASA Ames Research Center, and Web editor at e-book pioneer NuvoMedia. I have a B.A. in the history of science from Harvard College and a PhD in the history and social study of science and technology from MIT. I've published articles in Science, Technology Review, IEEE Spectrum, Encyclopaedia Brittanica, Technology and Culture, Alaska Airlines Magazine, and World Business, and I've been a guest of NPR, CNN, CNBC, NECN, WGBH and the PBS NewsHour. I'm a frequent conference participant and enjoy opportunities to moderate panel discussions and on-stage chats. My personal site: waderoush.com My social media coordinates: Twitter: @wroush Facebook: facebook.com/wade.roush LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/waderoush Google+ : google.com/+WadeRoush YouTube: youtube.com/wroush1967 Flickr: flickr.com/photos/wroush/ Pinterest: pinterest.com/waderoush/