When Justin Kosmides co-founded Bloom in 2023, his goal was to create a savior for the mobility industry. He had seen many e-bike and e-scooter companies fail because of an inability — or an unwillingness — to outsource some of the hardest problems, like logistics, manufacturing, or building a supply chain. He wanted to convince survivors and new entrants to let Bloom handle that work for them.

Then Donald Trump got re-elected and started shotgun-blasting tariffs on dozens of countries, partially to jump-start U.S. manufacturing. This accelerated a hardware scene that was already heating up in this country and, suddenly, it was more than just mobility companies looking to beef up their domestic supply chain. Robotics startups, drone-makers, and many more started to pop up.

That was an opportunity for Bloom, which is based in Detroit, but to tackle it, the startup had to partially reinvent itself. Instead of performing some of those harder, behind-the-scenes tasks, which was a big part of the original plan, Bloom shifted to a pure marketplace model, in which it connects buyers and sellers. It’s now focused on making, essentially, supply chain AI agents that Bloom’s customers use to find specific types of suppliers, parts, or manufacturing and engineering services.

The reinvention slowed Bloom’s fundraising plans. But the company has now made over 2,000 matches for more than 140 companies, and it wants to grow faster. In an interview earlier this year, Kosmides, who is Bloom’s CEO, said his startup is like what an AI-driven version of Alibaba did in China, where it created a marketplace for contract manufacturers.

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