Bloom Nutrition

When Mari Llewellyn launched Bloom Nutrition in 2019, it was the kind of origin story investors and editors love: a creator-turned-founder who translated a personal transformation into a consumer product. Llewellyn’s public weight-loss journey — she cites losing roughly 90 pounds — produced demand for her PDF workout guides and, ultimately, a desire to make supplements that tasted good and felt approachable to women who didn’t see themselves in the red-and-black aisles of legacy sports-nutrition brands. The founding year, 2019, and that personal through-line are consistently cited across company materials and profiles. ([prnewswire.com](^[1]), [muckrack.com](^[2]))

From day one Bloom leaned on the creator’s credibility. Llewellyn’s following (her platforms were cited by multiple outlets as numbering in the millions) gave Bloom an immediate audience for its flagship Greens & Superfoods powder. Early coverage tracks a classic creator playbook: start DTC, validate a hero SKU on social, scale with paid and organic creator content, then move into brick-and-mortar. But the brand’s trajectory is more than influencer virality — it married creative volume with retail execution, landing a major first retail partner in 2022. ([forbes.com](^[3]), [prnewswire.com](^[4]))

The first major strategic pivot came on October 17, 2022, when Bloom announced its first retail partnership: the Greens & Superfoods powder on target.com and in more than 600 Target store locations. The company framed the move as a deliberate decision to make its hero product accessible at scale — an early and consequential step away from the pure DTC playbook. Four months later Bloom announced distribution into 1,787 Walmart stores (February 24, 2023), pushing the company further into the mainstream retail ecosystem. Those two retailer wins gave Bloom not just shelf space but velocity data that advertisers and investors pay attention to. ([prnewswire.com](^[4]))

Bloom’s rapid retail expansion and social traction invited institutional capital. On January 17, 2024, Nutrabolt — the maker of C4 energy drinks — led a $90 million financing that gave Nutrabolt roughly a 20% stake in Bloom, making Nutrabolt the brand’s largest outside investor; the round also included investor Clayton Christopher and Amberstone. The deal was sold publicly as growth capital to accelerate product innovation and demand-generation, and it brought beverage and CPG operating heft to Bloom’s influencer-driven playbook. ([prnewswire.com](^[1]), [modernretail.co](^[5]))

With that capital and retail experience Bloom began to stretch beyond tubs. In July 2024 the company launched Bloom Sparkling Energy — its first ready-to-drink beverage — exclusively at Target, and by mid‑2025 the company had shifted aggressively into beverages, including a prebiotic soda called Bloom Pop that rolled into Walmart in July 2025. Company communications and trade reporting claim explosive RTD growth metrics (for example, millions of cans sold and rapid store expansion) that have been cited by Numerator and in PR materials; those figures — while eye-catching — are presented by the company and trade press rather than audited financial statements. ([prnewswire.com](^[6]))

Bloom’s ascent has not been without friction. The supplement category attracts fresh skepticism from nutrition professionals — critics warn that greens powders are often unnecessary for consumers who get adequate nutrients from food, and that supplement claims can outpace clinical evidence — coverage that has cited Bloom alongside other viral greens brands. On the consumer front, long-running threads on Reddit and other social forums from 2021–2022 document complaints about product taste, digestive reactions to protein blends, and customer-service issues; those threads resurfaced at multiple points as the brand scaled, supplying raw, consumer-level pushback to the company’s marketing narratives. ([eater.com](^[7]), [reddit.com](^[8]))

Internally, Bloom’s rapid scaling posed execution challenges familiar to fast-growing consumer startups: inventory planning for retailers, the cost of retail promos and slotting, and the delicate governance of an influencer program that ran into quality-control and authenticity questions. Trade interviews and investor materials indicate Bloom leaned heavily into creator volume — thousands of creators, a high-percentage marketing budget dedicated to creators — a choice that drove visibility but also opened the brand to intensified scrutiny when product experiences varied. The company’s response combined PR, expanded customer service resources and product extensions designed to broaden appeal. ([nutrabolt.com](^[9]), [linkedin.com](^[10]))

For all the noise, Bloom has locked down tangible wins: a first‑to‑market creator-to-retail path; a major strategic investor in Nutrabolt; accolades on startup lists and awards programs; and trade-reported top-shelf velocity at Target and Walmart. Multiple trade outlets and company statements attribute nine‑figure annual sales (reported TTM figures in trade coverage place Bloom in the ~$170 million range) and extraordinary social reach (reports of roughly 12 billion views across short‑form platforms and collaborations with thousands of creators). Those topline claims have powered a narrative useful to partners: Bloom is not just an influencer fad, it is a scaled CPG business. But readers should note that many of those tallies are reported in trade and PR materials, and are not the product of a public earnings filing. ([subscribe.2xecommerce.com](^[11]), [netinfluencer.com](^[12]))

As of mid‑2025 the picture looks like a scaled founder-led business that remains privately held and growth-focused. Founders Mari Llewellyn and Greg LaVecchia remained majority shareholders after the 2024 financing, and the company continued to pursue beverage and convenience channels while leaning on Nutrabolt’s beverage experience. Whether Bloom’s long-term durability will be defined by the brand’s ability to consistently convert retail trial into repeat buyers, by product quality and formulation rigor, or by continued creator-driven demand is still the open question — but the company has already converted creator momentum into broad distribution and meaningful outside capital. ([prnewswire.com](^[1]))

Bloom’s arc is a cautionary, instructive case for creator founders: you can build a genuine consumer business from a single hero SKU and social momentum, but the move from community to CPG exigencies (supply chain, quality control, retail economics, regulatory scrutiny) requires different disciplines. The company’s decisions — to double down on creator volume, to prioritize a hero product, then to accelerate into beverages with strategic capital — read like a modern, high-risk, high-reward CPG playbook. ([prnewswire.com](^[4]))

• 2019 — Bloom Nutrition founded by Mari Llewellyn and Gregory (Greg) LaVecchia (company founding year reported across company and trade materials). ([prnewswire.com](^[1]), [linkedin.com](^[2]))
• October 17, 2022 — Bloom announces first retail partnership: Greens & Superfoods launches on target.com and in 600+ Target stores. ([prnewswire.com](^[3]))
• February 24, 2023 — Bloom expands into Walmart: products roll into approximately 1,787 Walmart locations. ([prnewswire.com](^[4]))
• January 17, 2024 — Nutrabolt leads a $90 million financing; Nutrabolt takes roughly a 20% stake, with Clayton Christopher and Amberstone participating. ([prnewswire.com](^[1]), [modernretail.co](^[5]))
• June 13, 2024 — Mari Llewellyn and Greg LaVecchia named winners/finalists in the EY Entrepreneur of the Year Greater Los Angeles program (regional award calendar; Bloom listed among winners/finalists in EY materials). ([ey.com](^[6]))
• July 19, 2024 — Bloom launches Bloom Sparkling Energy (first ready-to-drink canned beverage) at Target as its RTD debut. ([prnewswire.com](^[7]))
• July 1, 2025 — Bloom announces Bloom Pop (prebiotic soda) launching exclusively at Walmart (full-chain rollout reported in PR materials and trade press). ([prnewswire.com](^[8]), [mysanantonio.com](^[9]))