INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Doing laundry can be a chore
It takes time and is tedious
led by Initialized Capital for its on-demand laundry delivery service
And in late February, Rinse raised a $23 million Series D led by LG Electronics to continue growing its 12-year-old business, which includes
dry cleaning services.While they have different business models, the two companies are the latest examples of laundry startups attracting
Sudhanshu Gautam, CTO, (pictured above) founded the startup nearly a year ago with the intent of building a faster, more affordable laundry
The company claims it can return folded loads within a few hours from pickup
(I used the service briefly in 2024 when our home renovation resulted in a loss of access to our washer and dryer.)Rinse, which touts itself
It has raised over $70 million since inception.San Francisco-based Rinse currently operates in several major U.S
It pledges to turn around laundry or dry cleaning within as little as 24 hours (for an extra fee) but has a standard three- to four-day
It prides itself on hiring its workers as employees rather than making them independent contractors.NoScrubsThe idea for NoScrubs was born
turn around its services gives it an edge
Presently, NoScrubs has 13 employees.RinseThe idea for Rinse came while Prakash and Joun, two former Dartmouth classmates, and Cheng
than two decades operating a brick-and-mortar dry cleaner in South San Francisco
They piloted the concept with friends before bootstrapping the business.Since those early days, Rinse says it has cleaned more than 100
While it operates primarily a direct-to-consumer model, it is now also growing the B2B side of its business, where it serves commercial
brick-and-mortar laundromats and cleaners
It also intends to continue to expand geographically.Today, it employs about 600 valets and about 100 non-valet workers.Like NoScrubs, it
NoScrubs stands out because of its model of leveraging underutilized machines in laundromats and apartment complexes rather than owning its
purchasers of its washer and dryers
with room for multiple players
Not all companies in the space have fared well, though
In 2016, Washio shut down its operations, which Rinse scooped up
And in 2014, Y Combinator-backed door-to-door laundry service Prim announced it was shutting down.
