Blidz raises 6 million euros for its launch in the European market

Blidz, a social shopping app from Finland, has managed to raise 6 million euros in seed funding. The company combines social shopping with gamification in a very odd yet - so far - successful mix that Blidz wants to bring to the Western European markets.  

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Additionally, the funding will also be used to expand the product suite and supply chain. Blidz currently has had a base growth of 1500% a year, for the last three years. 

Blidz: games and sales for the Gen-Z

Launched in 2018, the company aims to a very specific buyer persona: Gen-Z and students. In that sense, the app is remarkably different from other e-commerce oriented apps, because of a - sometimes odd - combination of social selling, live shopping, and games. The games are used in the same fashion as the popular Gatcha mobile games from Japan and combine the “Daily reward login” systems of the mobile MMORPGs. 

To topple all that, the app puts in place a powerful recommendation system, that provides a different customized experience for each buyer, if your friends and family are also using the app because it gives prominence to their recommendations above the general poll of reviews and ratings. 

How does Blidz use social shopping?

The way Blidz uses social shopping, primarily, is that users buy a product of their choice and then share that on social media in order to get acquaintances to buy the same thing. If someone does, the user gets the item for a discounted amount. If no one buys the same product, the user will receive store credit from Blidz.

This way of shopping is not very popular in the West yet, but there are numerous apps using these mechanics in China. “Western online shopping is behind the curve on social adoption. Our goal is to liberate consumers from expensive and boring shopping experiences by letting them leverage their own activity and social networks to get the best value-for-money products anywhere”, said co-founder Lasse Diercks.

All in all, it seems Blidz will launch in the European market at full force before Summer 2022. But, will it work? We will surely keep track of them!