Camille Socquet-Clerc was on a mission in 2019: she wanted to make a large-scale positive climate impact and also make investing in renewable energy projects and cleantech as easy as possible. Enter: Bloom.
Bloom’s mission is to help people grow their wealth while making a positive climate impact.
Camille and her team at Bloom have developed their own investing platform and green investment fund from scratch to make it easy for all Australians to invest in the best Australian climate impact companies and renewable energy projects (think solar farms or wind farms).
The platform allows customers to track their impact, learn about sustainable finance, automate their investments and withdraw their money within a few business days.
But Bloom is first and foremost a community of people using their money power for good. They’ve hosted sustainable finance events every month since 2019 to encourage people to use their savings, banking, super and investments to support climate action.
We spoke to Camille about her business and journey as a Queensland female founder.
What inspired you to start your business?
I started Bloom in 2019 because I wanted to fix climate change at scale and I wanted to make investing in renewable energy projects and cleantech accessible to everyone (not just the ultra-wealthy!). In 2019, while learning and working for EnergyLab’s Cleantech Accelerator, I became fascinated by the huge opportunities that investing in cleantech and renewable energy presented. But I was unable to invest my own savings into these opportunities as I quickly discovered that most investments in renewable energy projects in Australia are restricted to wealthy sophisticated investors.
Green investing, and our global transition towards renewable energy, is a huge opportunity for wealth creation and I think it would be terribly unfair if only the wealthiest Australians could benefit from it.
Today the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the intergovernmental body of the United Nations responsible for advancing knowledge on human-induced climate change, says we need to increase our investment in climate solutions globally seven-fold and invest $2.4USD trillion per year until 2050 to transform our global energy system if we want a chance to maintain our alignment with the Paris agreement goals.
Bloom was a way for me to join the dots – a solution to accelerate investments in renewables and climate solutions, with a passion to make sure all Australians could benefit from it.
What milestones have you reached?
After only three months of launching, our customers have invested more than $1 million into our climate impact fund to support renewable energy projects and support climate impact companies.
I am also very proud of our community – to date we have more than 2,000 members meeting every month to learn about how investing can both help them build their wealth, while making a positive impact. We have delivered more than 30 events since 2019.
Finally, our company raised $675,000 last year from fantastic investors (including the wonderful founders of the Australian success story, Envato) and we’re well on track to raising our second round of funding to grow our team and expand in Australia.
What business achievements are you most proud of to date?
Our proudest achievement is the creation of the first Australian investment fund offering access to renewable energy infrastructure investments to Australian retail investors.
We have created a unique methodology to select our investments, relying on two leading climate science models (Project Drawdown and ClimateWorks) – our fund invests 100% of its funds toward genuine, scientifically proven climate solutions. There is so much greenwashing in financial services, so it makes me proud that such a small company like ours has been able to deliver an innovative and cutting-edge investment solution.
We are also very proud of our mobile investment app, which has received 5 stars from our customers on both Apple and Google stores – not bad for a first version of the app!
Have you participated in any Advance Queensland programs, or received any support from Advance Queensland to date?
The support of Advance Queensland is so beneficial to the startup community and I have certainly benefited from it. I was lucky to get support to go to the Innovation Festival in Cairns in 2021, and this year I attended Innovation Bay’s pitch event in Noosa, which was supported by Advance Queensland.
What’s your advice for other female entrepreneurs and businesses starting out on their entrepreneurship journey?
My advice for other female founders is to manage their energy as best as possible to go the distance. With passion, it's easy to get carried away and spread yourself too thin. Investing time and care in yourself is investing in your business.
My second advice is to surround yourself with other founders or business owners who have built something similar to your vision. The best advice comes from people who have been ‘in the arena’, not watching safely from the sidelines.
