AUSTIN, Texas — NoScrubs, a technology company with designs on revolutionizing the laundry service industry, reports there has been a $2 million pre-seed funding round led by Initialized Capital with participation from Frontier VC.
The company’s platform connects customers with nearby laundry facilities “to deliver clean, perfectly folded laundry at unprecedented speeds and affordability.”
Founded by former executives from Instacart, Cabal, Amazon, Favor and ThredUp, Austin-based NoScrubs is tackling what it calls the “prevalent and perpetual” pain point of doing laundry. The company says its unique model leverages a network of strategically located laundry facilities to reduce travel distances, enabling delivery speeds that are faster than traditional services while maintaining service quality and affordability.
While leading geographic expansion at Instacart, NoScrubs CEO Matt O’Connor became frustrated with his laundry service, which averaged four-day turnarounds for upwards of $50. The light bulb came on when he realized that many laundry machines are idle at any given time. Additionally, existing services had inefficient last-mile distances, which resulted in the slow turnarounds and high price points.
“From first principles, the status quo with laundry doesn’t make much sense: we all have expensive washing machines that take up a room in our homes, that we dread using, and that sit idle 95% of the time,” says Sudhanshu Gautam, CTO at NoScrubs. “When you can push a button and get perfectly folded laundry for less than $2 per day, what’s the point in owning a laundry machine?”
NoScrubs customers download the app, set their pickup time, and their laundry is returned, folded, within hours. The key to success, according to the company, was combining the utilization of existing laundromats for more localized service with new technology that automates much of the experience.
Looking ahead, NoScrubs says it is poised to integrate robotics for delivery, having already completed successful pilot programs. The new funding will accelerate market expansion and technology development, bringing the company closer to its mission of making traditional laundry a thing of the past.
“Many attempts have been made to do laundry as a service well, but the market for this is still untapped,” says Zoe Perret, partner at Initialized Capital. “Matt and Sudhanshu have combined their expertise working in the gig economy with deep technical expertise to develop a completely unique approach that’s faster and more efficient — with more innovation to come.”
“Just as Uber, Instacart and DoorDash won their markets by nailing customer convenience, we’re positioned to transform a fundamental aspect of daily life,” adds Gautam. “Our vision is to democratize laundry service so people can spend more time doing things they don’t hate.”
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