One in five pupils in England has special educational needs. Mainstream EdTech wasn't built for them. Bloom is — from the ground up, for how neurodivergent children actually think, feel, and learn.
Parents of children with complex needs spend an average of £8,500 a year, and 35% have left work to fill the gaps. Every refused assessment and every waiting list lands on the family.
227,813 referrals are open, and 90% have waited longer than the 13-week standard. Families are told to wait. Children fall further behind.
Families who can afford it spend thousands a year. Families who cannot have almost nothing. The gap between those two groups is where Bloom operates.
The education system doesn't just underserve neurodivergent children — it actively pushes them out. This is a structural failure, not individual bad luck.
Bloom is an AI learning service for neurodivergent children aged 6–16, with an Early Years companion for families of 0–6 year olds. Not retrofitted from a neurotypical baseline — built from the ground up for how these children actually learn.
Every session starts with a feelings check-in and adapts to how the child is doing — not just their mastery level. Content pauses when a child is dysregulated, and a break is always one tap away.
A living creature that grows with participation — not correct answers. Rewards showing up and trying. Never wilts. Never regresses. The emotional centre of the product.
A continuously-updated model of how each child learns — attention window, frustration threshold, modality preferences, emotional baseline. Updated after every session.
Aiming to be the most trusted EHCP resource online. Written by parents who have fought — and won. The feature parents will share more than any other.
Safeguarding, data privacy, and child data sovereignty are non-negotiable constraints. A named DSL before any child uses the product. No child data ever processed by third-party AI.
The only platform supporting neurodivergent families from the moment a parent first notices something different — long before a diagnosis, long before an EHCP battle.
NON-NEGOTIABLE DESIGN PRINCIPLES
At 5,000 paying families at blended £18/month = £90k MRR / £1.08m ARR — a real business on the consumer side alone, before school or NHS revenue.
The child model becomes more accurate with every session. After 10,000 sessions, Bloom will understand neurodivergent learning in a way no new entrant — however well-funded — can replicate without years of data.
Rebuilt from learning objectives outward for neurodivergent cognition as the primary design target. Replicating this requires deep pedagogical expertise across seven subjects — not engineering effort alone.
A product that genuinely works in the SEN parent community creates word-of-mouth growth that no paid acquisition can replicate. Emotional switching cost is very high once established.
A category that no competitor owns and that cannot be built quickly — it requires earned credibility, real content, and ongoing maintenance. The moat is trust, not technology.
Most EdTech is not willing to build rigorous safeguarding. The liability, the human review requirement, the complexity — Bloom builds it properly from day one. This is a genuine barrier to competitors building quickly.
Product vision, user flows, AI architecture, curriculum framework, safeguarding policy, business case, and co-founder search — written up before any build spend.
Working web app. Child UI, parent hub, tutor AI integrated. Safeguarding live. Weekly parent interviews. Pre-seed raise from beta evidence.
Educator dashboard, Early Years companion, Literacy added, EHCP reports, parent community. Seed round on Phase 1 evidence. ML hire.
Bloom's own fine-tuned model, full curriculum, school partnerships, LSTM emotion model. 2,000 paying families. Series A to build the team properly.
State-standards alignment, IEP reporting, COPPA parental consent, district licensing. Built on UK evidence base and trusted brand. Series B.
Design Director-level expertise across product strategy, UX design, and digital design. The ability to hold a complex product vision and translate it into precise, buildable specifications — the skill most technical founding teams never have.
Seed round. The vision, product flows, AI architecture and business case are mapped out. This round turns them into a working product: the first maths curriculum, a tested prototype, the build, and a safe closed beta with 20 families.
Proposed 18-month budget at the £500k base of the round, to the 200-family Phase 2 gate. A larger round brings the Phase 2 hires forward.