Processing .....please wait.. 
The article has been forwarded.... 
Ashish Baldua Co-Founded bloomspot Raises $40 Million
By siliconindia
Santa Clara: San Francisco-based bloomspot, a group buying daily deal site, raised $35 million in series B round of funding led by InterWest Partners and Columbia Capital along with Menlo Ventures, True Ventures, QED Investors and Harrison Metal as well as individuals including Erik Blachford and Gary Parsons. Additonally, they raised close to $5 million of venture debt from Western Technology Investment.
Co-Founded by Ashish Baldua and Jasper Malcolmson, bloomspot brings a performance-based offer model to local merchants and provide a platform for customers who seek to discover their next local favorite. It features high caliber restaurants, spas, boutiques and other experiential merchants on its site. It has offices in Los Angeles, New York, DC, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Atlanta, Denver, Seattle and San Diego.
Ashish Baldua has eleven years of experinece in the engineering group at Yahoo! as one of the first one humdred employees of the company. He has extensive experience conceptualising and leading the development of commerce-oriented consumer internet technologies.
Nigel Morris, Managing Partner, QED Investors and co-founder of Capital One Financial, said that as the credit card business was ripe for reinvention in the early 90's, they believe that the local marketing sector will undergo waves of disruption.
The company is closing the redemption loop by delivering complete transparency around customer spend and return and guarantees profitable spending levels from their customers. It has integratged its product into the credit card experience, rewarding patrons for their spend and return levels and providing customer spending and repeat visit information to merchants.
Doug Pepper, Partner at InterWest Partners, said that their investment represents their belief in bloomspot's ability to close the loop in the local offers space. The company leverages proprietory algorithms to predict consumer spend and return levels for qualified merchants with each promotion. It also provides complete visibility of customer visits and in-store credit card transactions, allowing merchants to evaluate an offer's profitability and success. Detailed information about customer transactions allows the company to make private offers available exclusively to the highest value patrons.
Jasper Malcolmson, CO-Founder and CEO, bloomspot, said that their foucs is to establish a new model based on merchant profitability and rewarding the best local customer. They are recreating the experience of a great customer that receives special recognition from a local merchant because of his or her superior patronage.
