On-demand laundry and dry-cleaning service Laundryheap has just announced the acquisition of Laundrapp – one of its key competitors. While the terms of the deal haven’t been disclosed, it certainly places the young startup as a market leader.
Founded in 2014 in London, Laundryheap was bootstrapped for the first three years. We spoke to founder and CEO Deyan Dimitrov in 2020 about Laundryheap’s secret sauce and how the team have carefully blended VC funding, crowdfunding and bootstrapping to grow sustainably. In 2021, the firm picked up €2.8 million for its platform that has switched up the laundry and dry-cleaning world.
Since then, Laundryheap, founded by Deyan Dimitrov, Mayur Bommai and Ruxandra Lica, has focused on building out its global footprint and expanding service offerings for both consumer and B2B markets. This has included brokering key laundry partnerships with Holiday Inn, Premier Inn, JustEat, UnderTheDoormat, Ibis, and Best Western.
As a result, the company is now one of the world’s biggest providers of on-demand laundry and dry-cleaning services – operating in 11 international markets, including the UK, Sweden, Denmark, Ireland and the Netherlands.
Laundrapp, which merged with Zipjet in 2019 under the Laundrapp brand has been Laundryheap’s main competitor. It acquired Washbox in 2015, before entering into administration in 2020. It was bought out by Inc Retail (part of the Inc & Co Group), the retail group behind brands such as KNOMO London & Chop’d, who enabled the brand to continue operations. Since then, Laundrapp has continued to provide services across London and 15 other UK towns or cities.
This acquisition will expand Laundryheap’s regional reach across the UK, increase its customer base, and provide access to an augmented network of transport and logistics partners. All Laundrapp employees will be retained and, over the coming months, the Laundrapp brand will be replaced by the Laundryheap brand.
All Laundrapp customers will now benefit from Laundryheap’s 24-hour pick and return service. What’s more, the brand is focusing on becoming eco-friendly, having recently invested in additional e-cargo bikes, expanding its ability to provide UK customers with a faster and more sustainable delivery service.
Deyan Dmitrov, CEO and Founder of Laundryheap, commented: “In 2014, on-demand laundry and dry-cleaning became a hugely competitive space almost overnight. At Laundryheap, we did our best to keep our heads down and stay out of the fray. Instead, we bootstrapped the business and iterated the model until we were confident that we could scale-up the offering in a sustainable way. Only then did we raise a strategic amount of VC investment.
“This mindful approach is a philosophy we have maintained ever since and over the last 8 years we’ve gone from strength to strength, including launching successfully across a range of international markets. The acquisition of Laundrapp is a testament to the resilience of our model and ongoing demand for high-quality, reliable on-demand laundry services. We’re delighted to be expanding our UK footprint by welcoming Laundrapp customers and partners onto the Laundryheap platform.”
via https://www.AiUpNow.com
April 25, 2022 at 04:40AM by contact@bcurdy.com, Khareem Sudlow
