The on-demand offering has seen a year of huge growth, including expansion across the Middle East, with 60-80% customer growth month-on-month
The funding will help Laundryheap continue its growth, with aims to triple the size of business by the end of 2021
Laundryheap marks Sova VC’s second investment since the firm’s launch last year, after investing $2.5 million in the Series B round of translation platform solution Smartcat
Dubai, UAE –Laundryheap, the world’s fastest growing on-demand laundry and dry cleaning platform, has today announced a $3.5m Series A round led by Sova VC. The round was joined by the SidebySide Partnership.
Founded in 2014, and present in the Middle East since 2018, Laundryheap offers door-to-door laundry and dry-cleaning services to consumer and business customers, including major brands, returning items to users within 24-hours.
This raise follows years of steady growth where Laundryheap has focused on building a sustainable model that centres around repeat custom. A surge in interest following the outbreak of the pandemic has fuelled further market growth and led to a series of successful expansions to new markets during 2020, including: the Middle East, Singapore, Sweden and the USA. The platform now has a presence across eleven international markets.
Within the Middle East market, Laundryheap has reported particularly rapid growth since March, with the company expanding into new markets and customer growth hitting 60-80% month-on-month. Just two short years since its entry into the region, Laundryheap is now operational in four countries and six cities across the GCC, including the UAE (Dubai, Sharjah and Abu Dhabi), Bahrain (Manama), Qatar (Doha) and Kuwait (Kuwait City), with plans for further expansion in the pipeline in the coming year.
During the pandemic, Laundryheap introduced new ‘virus wash’ services and extra-hot cleaning offerings, as well as expanded support for its B2B clients. The company has also focused on making its supply chain more sustainable through green cleaning techniques and low-carbon transport.
This investment was led by Sova VC, a London based venture capital firm launched in December 2020 with plans to invest over €50 million of capital in building a portfolio of more than 20 early-stage technology companies.
Laundryheap will use the funding to accelerate its expansion across existing and additional international markets, whilst retaining its focus on sustainable growth and profitability.
Deyan Dimitrov, CEO & Founder of Laundryheap, said:
“We’ve never focused on the kind of ‘growth at any cost’ expansion that other on-demand businesses have and our approach to fundraising reflects this. We bootstrapped for the first few years of our operation and didn’t raise our Seed round until we were confident in our model. That’s why this is a really exciting chapter for us. We’re raising this Series A because it’s the right time to focus on more rapid expansion and the round will enable us to consolidate our position as the best on-demand laundry platform in the market. We’re delighted that Sova VC has led this round and we’re looking forward to working with them closely over the coming months and years.”
Alexander Chikunov, Partner at Sova VC, said:
“Laundryheap stood out to us as a company with excellent unit economics, the ability to scale (even during a difficult period), and an impressive senior leadership team. It’s a great example of the type of company we want to work with, and fits perfectly with our focus on high-potential technology companies with a particular emphasis on B2B and B2B2C marketplaces and software platforms.
“We look forward to working with Deyan and the team to consolidate their position as the world’s fastest growing laundry and dry cleaning marketplace and grow its market share in the years ahead.”
Laundryheap marks Sova VC’s second deal since launch, after investing $2.5 million in the Series B round of translation platform solution Smartcat, a global B2B translation services marketplace that connects translation agencies, freelancers, and enterprise clients to enable continuous delivery of multilingual content.