Happy Bloo Monday 👋,

The weekly newsletter for businesses owners, organisations, team members and solo entrepreneurs (freelancers) — designed to add some colour to the Monday blues and replace it with a touch of Bloo 💙. This week, we’re rolling out something a little cinematic…

In this week of Bloo Monday’s we’ll be covering:

• 🎬 Fintech Meets Film — why we’ve gone all in on production companies and crews

• 🍇 The Bloo Grape Showcase — a day of amazing short films, creativity, and community

• 🗞️ Bloo in the News! — we were featured in Business Day Payments Magazine

• 🔥 What’s coming up soon — Look out for our update on the BAI Heatseekers Con 2025.

The lights. The cameras. The admin.

While South Africa’s film industry keeps producing global stories, what most people don’t see is what happens behind the scenes.

The back and forth between production teams and the freelancers (cast, crew, stylists, sound techs, editors) who make the magic happen.

Film is such a niche and fast moving industry. The invoice templates, timesheets and everything financial admin related is so specific to production companies.

When people ask how we started working with the film industry, the real answer is simple:

It all started with Thabo.

One of our very first hires at Bloo Money — and the kind of team member every founder dreams of.

Curious. Reliable. Multi-talented. One minute he was helping us launch our podcast, the next he was in the field shooting case study videos with our customers, and then jumping straight into sales calls.

But what we admired most about Thabo wasn’t just his work ethic — it was his creative hustle.

Behind the scenes, outside of being a rockstar of an employee, Thabo was quietly building his own production company: 4th Cycle Productions.

It’s a funny story that one of our first employees, also became our first pilot with a production company.

The moment came when 4th Cycle received a commission from MultiChoice to produce a film for Mzansi Magic.

That was the spark.

Suddenly, Thabo wasn’t just our teammate he was our customer.
And all the pain points we were solving for other SMEs? He was experiencing them in real time:

• Managing cast and crew payments

• Collecting freelancer banking details

• Tracking spend on each production

• Making sure everyone got paid on time

• Reporting back to funders on how the budget was spent

From all his experience working at Bloo and watching us work with customers such as Mi Casa Music, Assitej South Africa and others he immediately saw how they needed the app.

Not just because he used to work for Bloo but as a Producer he wanted the invoicing and their payments process to work as seamlessly as possible. In film any delays cost you money, as many of the moving parts rely on each other.

We couldn’t be happier watching his growth. Not only because Bloo helped them streamline the behind the scenes for one of their first films but also seeing them grow and continue to get commission after commission producing several films since then.

In the past year, we started noticing a trend:
More and more production companies keep signing up to use Bloo Money.

It’s actually been our fastest growing customer segment, because the creatives who just want to focus on making films find our app so simple for what they need to do when it comes to production accounting.

From branded content and short films, to music videos and corporate commercials — each of them had the same pain points:

• Tracking freelance crew invoices

• Managing supplier data in one place

• Aligning budgets to actual payments

• Reporting to executive producers or funders

• Paying 10–50+ people per project, fast

🎬 Meet the Makers: How Our Film Clients Use Bloo

Here’s how production companies are using Bloo Money today:

🎥 Pre-Production

• Create a new project

• Onboard cast and crew via a single magic link (banking details, ID, tax)

• Create simple contract templates which can be signed through Bloo

🎞️ Production Week

• Crew submits invoices for approval

• Producer or finance lead bulk-approves. Everyone from the Production Accountant to the Producer has insight into the process

• Pays everyone via EFT or bulk upload to bank

📽️ Post-Production & Reporting

• Auto-generate a report to show spend vs. budget

• Store all crew and cast documents in one place for post production audits

• Easily share proof of payment to funders or studios

🎬 Bloo Grape Showcase: A Day for Youth Indie Filmmakers

This past weekend, we co-hosted our very first Bloo Grape Showcase and it was nothing short of electric ⚡

Together with our partners at Grapefruit Gardens, we brought 5 of South Africa’s most exciting young filmmakers into one room — not just to screen their work, but to build real bridges between creativity, community, and capital.

🎥 Event Highlights:

• 💬 Industry Panel — Funding, distribution, and how to build a grow a creative career after shooting your first or second film.

• 🎬 5 Powerful Short Films — Screened to a packed room of peers and industry guests

• 🏆 Audience & Judges' Awards — Recognition + real prizes for standout talent

• 🤝 Networking & Conversations — Over snacks, sound, and shared purpose

💙 Powered by Partners With Purpose:

A huge thank you to Gauteng Film Commission, BAI Foundation, Hollard Film Guarantors, and Sinema Agency for sponsoring the showcase and making this possible.

Together, we’re proving that when creatives are equipped with the right tools (and the right people in the room), anything is possible.

The Official Selection of the amazing films which were shown on the day

• Living on the Edge — Dennis Ngango

• Blind Spots — Miselwa Ngamlana

• Indlu Yenkomo — Khule Mayisa

• Go For The Head — Timothy Drew

• The Passage — Ntokozo Mlaba

A huge congratulations to Miselwa Ngamlana and Blind Spots which was awarded both the Judges Award and the Bloo Reel Audience choice award

🗞️ Bloo is in the News!

We’re proud to share that Bloo Money was recently featured in Business Day’s Payments Magazine 💥

The article dives into how Bloo is helping SMEs simplify freelancer payments, manage compliance, and reduce the time and cost of financial admin — especially for businesses working with freelancers and creative suppliers.

It’s such an honour that our hard work is being recognised alongside some of the countries most innovative financial services providers, fintechs and startups redefining how money flows.

🔥 What’s Coming Up Soon: The BAI Heatseekrs Con

🗓️ 1–2 August 2025
📍 Braamfontein, Johannesburg

We’re excited to be partnering with BAI Foundation again for HEATSKRS CON — a convention putting youth entrepreneurship and creative collaboration centre stage.

We’ll be hosting a finance-for-creatives workshop in partnership with Grapefruit Gardens and Hollard Film Guarantors so keep an eye out for more updates on this one!

🎟️ If you’re interested in the youth and South Africa indie film, creative and media industry be sure to get yourself a ticket as they’re selling out fast!

If you’re interested in attending the Bloo Grape film makers workshop on the 1st of August for free (we have a few spots available but are prioritising the film makers who were at our showcase) just reply to this email and we’ll add you to the shortlist.

🔥 Let’s connect

That’s it for this week folks and looking forward to seeing you again next week Monday.