Being early meant 350 rejections and two years with no pay
The founders were told they would never get big enough, until the investors who passed came back to fund them.
Inside Startup Funding · Building Community in Startups: The Antler ApproachBy the time the founders of Blooming Health met him, they had already taken 150 investor meetings.
The man who finally said yes is an investor at Antler, a startup firm that backs companies at their very start. He wrote a $100,000 check, drawn by founder-market fit, hard work, focus on the customer, and agreement on a sales plan. They would start where they could make progress and learn, working with community groups serving older adults to see if people would text, answer calls, stay with care by phone or video, and take part more in community life even without an iPhone.
That slow work is what truly early means. Behind one smooth success were about 350 meetings that went nowhere, and two years in which the founders paid themselves nothing, before a $26 million Series A made it look easy.
After that first $100,000, the investor said, they held about 200 more meetings and no one really wanted to get involved. Other investors disliked the sales strategy. They said the team was not selling to big companies and big health institutions, so it would never get big enough. What the founders believed, he said, was that they needed durability and proof around the product before they could run those large sales cycles.
He sent the deal to an investor friend known for backing young companies early. The answer was no way. A year and a half later, that backer headed Blooming Health's seed round. Eighteen months after that, Insight Partners headed a Series A worth $26 million, and the company began expanding care and access for older adults.
For the Antler investor, who spent nine years at LinkedIn, it became a defining lesson in how LinkedIn posts can make fundraising look easier than it is. He said "what people share on LinkedIn is not always the truth," and called the site performative in a way that hurts founders who assume raising money is smooth. In reality, he said, this team showed resilience and fortitude to create change while paying themselves nothing for two years.
He said other founders report similar meeting counts. Zach from Hi-Fi Bridge, one of his founders, went through many meetings before raising $8 million; it ranks among Antler's quickest-growing businesses worldwide. The Antler investor put it this way: "venture capitalists say they want to be first but they oftentimes want to follow."
Questions people ask
What does Blooming Health actually do?
Blooming Health works with community groups and health partners to help older adults stay connected to care through texts, phone calls, and video calls. The idea is to improve attendance, follow through on care, and access to services for people who may not be comfortable with smartphones or apps.
What is a Series A and why does $26 million matter?
A Series A is usually the first large, institutional round a startup raises after proving its product works for early customers. For Blooming Health, the $26 million round led by Insight Partners came about three years after the $100,000 first check, and signaled that bigger investors now believed the business could grow.
Why did so many investors dislike selling to community groups?
They worried the market was too small and too slow. Selling to neighborhood groups meant many small contracts instead of a few large hospital deals, and other investors doubted that work would translate into the revenue growth venture funds expect.