4: Building Bloom Money - Interview with Nina Mohanty ?

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As always, this new series of interviews features women entrepreneurs within the Amela community. It aims to highlight their journeys, share their valuable learnings, and provide inspiration and guidance for all our aspiring founders in the Amela community and the next generation of women entrepreneurs.

If you are an aspiring founder and would like to get access to the full interviews with our founders, you can Apply to be part of Amela following this link ?? https://tally.so/r/3qdpv8

This fourth edition is a short interview with Nina Mohanty, Founder of Bloom Money

About Nina Mohanty

Nina Mohanty is an entrepreneur dedicated to increasing financial inclusion for underserved communities. With a background in fintech, she’s spent years analyzing financial behaviors and challenges faced by immigrant and minority communities, which often lack access to traditional financial tools. This experience inspired her to found Bloom, a company aimed at creating financial solutions tailored to these unique needs, bridging the gap between traditional financial systems and those they often overlook.

About Bloom Money

Founded in 2021, Bloom is a UK based fintech platform designed to empower immigrant and minority communities in the UK and Europe with financial tools typically inaccessible through traditional banks. By offering resources like credit-building solutions and structured savings, Bloom tackles critical gaps in financial access, helping individuals navigate financial systems that don’t always meet their needs. Through Bloom, Nina aims to provide fair financial access and help users build a secure financial future. Bloom has been accelerated by Zinal Growth, January Ventures, Pact VC and Octopus Ventures.

Anais: What was your journey toward launching Bloom?

Nina: I didn’t go full-time with Bloom right away. I actually spent about a year and a half doing desk research and competitive analysis before I fully committed. My goal was to understand the space thoroughly—figuring out if anyone else was already tackling this problem, analyzing what was working for them, and identifying where they fell short. I interviewed dozens of remittance providers to gain insight into the challenges they and their customers faced. I started with hypotheses about what the problems were, but I didn’t jump straight to a solution. Instead, I took the time to understand the underlying issues.

About six months before quitting my job at Klarna, I began conducting one-on-one interviews with people I thought would be Bloom’s target demographic. I wanted to understand their unique perspectives on money and how factors like risk appetite and the formal financial system impacted them. During this time, I was learning about the financial behaviors in immigrant communities and emerging markets, which often operate outside the norms of traditional financial systems. Eventually, I reached a point where I felt I had enough knowledge and conviction to leave my job and focus on Bloom. I’m pretty risk-averse, so I made sure I had a year of personal runway before diving in, even taking on some side gigs to cushion the transition.

Anais: What helped you commit to taking the leap?

Nina: The decision came from hearing a consistent pain point across countless conversations.

People kept telling me the same story: the financial system doesn’t serve them, whether in the UK or Europe.

Immigrant communities, for instance, often lack credit histories, which severely limits their ability to access loans or credit. Many of them resort to informal financial practices—sending money home or making unnecessary purchases because they don’t know how to start building their financial future.

After completing over a hundred one-on-one interviews and distributing surveys to thousands more, I felt a strong pull to address this issue. The constant repetition of this pain point reinforced my belief that there was a genuine problem here, even if I didn’t yet have the exact solution. My conviction grew, and I became obsessed with solving this. I realized I was ready to pursue Bloom full-time because this wasn’t just a business idea—it was a problem that mattered deeply to me.

Anais: How did raising capital change things, and what challenges came afterward?

Nina: Raising capital was incredibly difficult. As a woman, a woman of color, and someone building for communities of color, I faced a triple barrier in the fundraising landscape. The typical investor doesn’t necessarily understand the background and unique needs of my target demographic.

Statistics around venture funding for female founders are grim, and I was very aware of the extra hurdles I’d face. One thing I quickly learned was the importance of storytelling—how you frame your narrative changes depending on who you’re speaking to.

For instance, an investor from an immigrant background might resonate more with the personal struggles of our customers, while a different audience might need a different starting point to understand the value.

After securing funding, I had to shift my mindset. Venture capital is designed to fuel rapid growth and development. For Bloom, we needed capital to cover essential, high-cost regulatory requirements, like compliance teams and licensing fees, that I couldn’t bootstrap alone. But taking venture capital also meant that I had to balance my vision with the expectations of the investors, which are primarily centered around growth and a high return on investment.

However, the macro environment shifted dramatically in 2022 and 2023, when interest rates shot up, and the focus shifted from growth to profitability. This meant constantly recalibrating, as the expectations of venture capital can be demanding, and those goalposts shift based on external factors and investor priorities. It’s challenging, as you lose some autonomy over the company’s direction, but it’s part of the journey with venture funding.

Anais: One piece of advice for aspiring women entrepreneurs?

Nina: You can do it. Founding something will likely be the hardest thing you’ve ever done, and it will test your resilience in ways you can’t predict. It’s vital to stay focused on solving the problem, not getting attached to a particular solution. That obsession with the problem will keep you going, even during the most challenging times. And remember, having a support system is crucial—friends, family, or a network that keeps you grounded and pushes you forward when things get tough.

A big thank you to Nina Mohanty for sharing part of her journey with us and many others.

If you are an aspiring founder and want to join the Amela Community, apply to join us following this link ?? https://tally.so/r/3qdpv8

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