Boomf facts for kids
Magical Mallows
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| Private | |
| Industry | Personalised confectionery |
| Founded | November 2013 |
| Founders | James Middleton and Andy Bell |
| Headquarters | Reading and London, England |
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Area served
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Global |
Boomf is a company from the UK that sends special, personalised gifts right through your letterbox! They started in 2013 by selling marshmallows with cool photos printed on them.
Now, Boomf offers many different kinds of gifts. These include the Boomf 'bomb', which is a greeting card that pops open. They also have the Boomf 'Flutter', a card with a butterfly that flies out!
How Boomf Started
Boomf was created in November 2013 by two people: James Middleton and Andy Bell.
James Middleton had a company before called Nice Cakes. It made personalised cakes. Andy Bell had a company called Mint Digital. Mint Digital made StickyGram, which turned Instagram photos into magnets. Boomf combines ideas from both of their past businesses.
Boomf's Journey
In 2014, Boomf raised over $1 million to help their business grow. Many investors, including Nick Jenkins who started Moonpig, helped them.
When Boomf first launched in November 2013, they kept James Middleton's involvement a secret. They wanted a quiet start. But in January 2014, they announced he was part of the company. They knew it would be hard to keep it a secret for long.
At first, some people found the idea of personalised marshmallows surprising. But Boomf quickly became popular! In its first year, the company shipped 2 tons of marshmallows. They made £100,000 (about $168,000) in sales in just three months.
Boomf even had a special service in the department store Selfridges. You could get personalised marshmallows made right there on a special tricycle! For Valentine's Day, they had a S'mores pop-up where customers could roast marshmallows.
In July 2015, Boomf looked for a new marshmallow designer across the country. A student named Izzy Burton won the competition.
New and Exciting Products
After starting with marshmallows, Boomf began making other fun gifts. They created different types of photo cards that explode with confetti! These include the Boomf Bomb, the Boomf Cannon, the Boomf Flutter Card, the Boomf Wild Card, and the Ta-Dah Card.
These exciting exploding cards became very popular on social media. Boomf's Instagram and Facebook pages gained many followers. This success helped Boomf make its first profit in 2019, earning £175,000. Their sales also grew to £4.4 million from £2.8 million the year before. The company moved to new, bigger offices in Reading.
Boomf continued to do well, making over one million pounds in profit in 2020.
Changes and New Ownership
However, in 2021, Boomf faced some challenges. It became very expensive to advertise on social media. The company found it hard to compete as a small, special brand.
Because of this, in January 2022, Boomf was bought by a group of investors. Stepan Galaev, an Estonian businessman, led this group. Roman Grigoriev, who started a global photography company called Splento, became Boomf's new CEO.
