Washing is a hassle. It takes time and is boring. Few people like to do that.
So it’s no surprise that startups have appeared to remove that load from their backs. Investors are also lined up to fund new and old players alike.
11 months of Noscrubs raised $2 million in the previous round, led by capital initialized for on-demand laundry delivery services. Also in late February, Rinse raised a $23 million Series D led by LG Electronics, continuing its 12-year-old business, including dry cleaning services.
Although they have different business models, both companies are the latest examples of laundry startups that attract venture capital. And they hope to succeed in the spaces where they have seen other startups wash away.
Noscrubs CEO Early Instacart employee Matt O’Connor and CTO Sudhanshu Gautam (pictured above) founded the startup almost a year ago with the intention of building a faster, more affordable laundry service. The company claims it can return a folded load within hours of pickup. Customers can either pay on demand or sign up for a subscription.
So far, Noscrubs is only available in Austin home, which is approaching 1,000 unique customers, O’Connor tells TechCrunch exclusively. (I used this service temporarily in 2024, and house renovations resulted in loss of access to washer and dryer.)
Touting itself as “Uber for Laundry,” Rinse was founded in 2013 by CEOs Ajay Prakash, CTO Sam Cheng and James Joun. Since its inception, it has raised over $70 million.
San Francisco-based rinse currently operates in several major US cities. We promise to turn around washing or dry cleaning within just 24 hours, but there is a standard 3-4 day turnaround. It takes pride in hiring workers as employees rather than creating independent contractors.
Noscrubs
The idea for Noscrubs came while O’Connor was one of the first 20 employees, head of Instacart’s geographical expansion. He was dissatisfied with the laundry service.
Noscrubs believes that speed can improve service gives the edge. The distance moved after pickup time was kept to a minimum as O’Connor specified what is described as a strategic location spread across Austin. These locations are a combination of what he described as “a general laundry room in the apartment with a judged laundry partner.”
The company plans to expand within Texas and “in most parts of the United States.” He says by the end of 2026. Currently, Noscrubs has 13 employees.
rinse
Rinse’s idea came when two former Dartmouth classmates, Cheng embarked on his mission to turn the chore into a technology-enabled service.
Prakash’s background is a startup, and Joun’s parents spent more than 20 years running 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 that he has cleaned more than 100 million people’s clothing. Although it operates mainly consumer models, it is now growing on the B2B side, serving commercial clients such as multi-family operators, cafes and spas.
Looking ahead, Prakash says the next step in rinsing is to acquire and brand a brick and mortar laundromat and cleaners. We also intend to continue expanding geographically.
Today, it employs around 600 valets and around 100 non-valet workers.
Like Noscrubs, it offers subscription services and higher priced Payger options.
Investors
Instead of owning its own infrastructure, initialized partner Zoe Perret believes Noscrubs stands out because of its models that utilize machinery that is not utilized in laundromats and apartments.
“Sudden traction in the first market soon after launch marks a clear path to scalability, while maintaining strong unit economics,” she said. “As they continue to prove that this business model works, they can plug and play and expand to new GEOs at scale.”
Frontier Venture Capital was initialized with the backing noscrub seed round.
Meanwhile, LG helps to accelerate investment by providing Rinse services to washer and dryer buyers. Given the US market size for laundry facilities and dry cleaning services is estimated at $15.75 billion in 2024, it is clear that this is a large industry with multiple players’ room. However, not all businesses in this space are doing well. In 2016, Washio stopped operations and rinsed scooped. And in 2014, Prim, a door-to-door laundry service supported by Y Combinator, announced it had been shut down.
Source link
