Annika Ng co-founded Blossom Social in Vancouver in 2021. The social investing app now has more than 850,000 users. This June its own community put nearly $2 million into the company in two hours, and Apple named it one of its top 25 apps of 2025. On November 5 she takes the stage at Fall Feast. This is her story so far.
- Role: Co-founder and COO, Blossom Social
- Founded: 2021, in Vancouver, with Maxwell Nicholson
- Users: more than 850,000
- Crowdfunding: $2M in two hours, June 2026
- Recognition: Apple Top 25 App of 2025, BCBusiness 30 Under 30 (2026)
- Education: Bachelor of Business Administration, Simon Fraser University
Who is Annika Ng?
Annika grew up watching her father come home from his day job and start work on his side business. That stuck with her. "I definitely always knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur," she told BCBusiness in March 2026.
She studied business at Simon Fraser University's Beedie School of Business, and in 2018 she was elected president of the SFU Business Administration Student Society. In SFU's own write-up of this year's 30 Under 30 list, she calls that role something that "ultimately became my gateway into entrepreneurship."
Through CEOx1Day, a student leadership program, she met Maxwell Nicholson. The two stayed in touch, and in 2021 they reconnected to start Blossom. Today Maxwell is CEO and Annika is COO, and the founding team also includes Kartik Bhutani and Brandon Beavis.
What is Blossom Social?
Blossom is a social network for investors. Members share their portfolios, trades and investment ideas, and follow people whose thinking they trust. The difference from a forum is that posts are backed by real activity from members' linked brokerage accounts, so you see what people actually hold, not only what they say.
Around that feed sit the tools people come back for: portfolio and dividend tracking across brokerages, research on stocks and ETFs, and what BetaKit calls "Duolingo-style investing education." Blossom has partnerships with Nasdaq, the NYSE and Vanguard.
The idea came from a problem Annika and Maxwell lived with. "We noticed when we were online that the information on Reddit and Twitter was often really scammy and full of misinformation," Annika told BCBusiness. "It just didn't feel welcoming for everyday investors like us."
How Blossom grew from 2,000 users to 850,000
The app launched on the App Store and Google Play in May 2022. Five months later it had more than 2,000 users, growing about 10 percent a week, and Blossom had been picked for Google's Women Founders accelerator, according to BetaKit.
The first plan was bigger and harder: become "Canada's first social brokerage," with trading inside the app. By 2024 the team had dropped it. "It was the wrong strategy, so we scrapped those plans entirely just to focus on being the investing social network," Maxwell told BetaKit. Choosing one thing paid off. Blossom had more than 125,000 users by May 2024, over 500,000 by early 2026, and more than 850,000 today, with a growing share in the United States.
As COO, Annika runs the operating side of the company, and her idea of who the app is for is a wide one. "The word 'investor' today includes everyone," she said in her BCBusiness profile. "It's no longer just the stereotype we saw 10 or 20 years ago."
$2 million in two hours: Blossom's crowdfunding record
Blossom has raised from funds too, LOI Venture and Goodwater Capital among them. What sets it apart is that it kept inviting its own members to own a piece of the company, through equity crowdfunding on FrontFundr.
- 2024: the first $500,000 was taken within a day, the round was opened for another $500,000, and 793 users put in nearly $1 million in total.
- 2025: close to $2 million came in within six hours.
- 2026: nearly $2 million in two hours, then $2.2 million from just over 1,000 investors by the next day, past the cap Canada sets on money from non-accredited investors.
Maxwell has described the people who backed the 2024 round as a "true cohort of hardcore advocates and supporters." That is the real asset here. A member who owns a piece of the company has every reason to bring a friend.
This is a founder profile, not investment advice.
One of Apple's top 25 apps of 2025
Apple named Blossom a Top 25 App of 2025, a line that now leads its App Store listing. A few months later Annika was named to the BCBusiness 30 Under 30 class of 2026, and she used the moment to make a point about home. "I think B.C. sometimes gets a reputation for not having as strong of a startup scene compared to other Canadian cities," she told SFU, "so being recognized alongside so many incredible people really shows how much talent and momentum we have."
"I actually think being a woman has been an advantage. Many of the qualities that make strong leaders, like empathy and humility, are traditionally seen as feminine."
That is Annika in BCBusiness, asked about being a woman in finance.
What founders can learn from Annika Ng
Start from a problem you have. Blossom exists because its founders were everyday investors who found the advice online unreliable. They built the place they wanted to use.
Drop the plan that does not fit. Becoming a brokerage meant a long regulatory process and, in Maxwell's words, "trying to compete with the Wealthsimples, the Questrades of the world." Walking away from it let the team put everything into the social product.
Make your users your owners. Round after round, crowdfunding turned thousands of members into shareholders, and each of the last three filled faster than the one before.
Build in Vancouver on purpose. Blossom is a Vancouver company with users well beyond Canada. If you are building here too, our list of startups built in Vancouver and the guide to raising a pre-seed round in Canada are good next reads.
Hear Annika Ng at Fall Feast on November 5
Annika is a speaker at Fall Feast, our evening for founders from across Vancouver. She joins Vansh Sobti, who built Cloud Nine Clothing to $10M by 22, on the speaker list.
- When: Thursday, November 5, 2026, 6 to 11 PM
- Where: Another Studios, 107 E 3rd Ave, Mount Pleasant, Vancouver
- What: an evening with Vancouver founders, a few short talks, and the drinks are on your ticket
Annika has spent five years building a room where people talk honestly about money. Come and hear how she did it.
Founder Feast spotlights entrepreneurs who are building something real. If you are a founder in Vancouver looking for your people, see how our Vancouver dinners work, or apply for a seat.
