Cents, a New York-based provider of integrated software, hardware, and payments technology for the laundry industry, has raised $140 million in Series C funding. The round was led by Sumeru Equity Partners, with participation from Camber Creek.
The funding represents the largest software investment ever made in the laundry technology sector and underscores growing investor interest in modernizing a highly fragmented, underserved small business market.
Founded to bring digital infrastructure to laundromats and garment care businesses, Cents offers a unified platform that combines AI-native business management software, proprietary hardware, and integrated payments. Its tools enable operators to manage operations, scale services, and enhance customer experiences across both self-service and full-service laundry models.
The company operates in a large and largely untapped market, with more than 90,000 retail laundry businesses and hundreds of thousands of laundry rooms across multi-family housing in the United States. These businesses provide essential, everyday services but have historically lacked access to modern technology solutions.
Cents plans to use the new capital to accelerate product innovation and expand its platform capabilities. Key areas of investment include enhancing its AI-powered product suite, improving customer support and experience, expanding offerings for laundromats and dry cleaners, and strengthening partnerships with route operators and equipment distributors. The company is also investing in next-generation payment hardware to improve affordability and accessibility for operators and customers.
The platform is already used by more than 4,500 laundromat locations, which collectively process approximately $1 billion in payments annually. By integrating point-of-sale systems, machine payments, marketing automation, AI customer service, and logistics capabilities such as pickup and delivery, Cents aims to become the operating system for modern laundry businesses.
As part of the transaction, Sumeru Managing Partner and Co-Founder Sanjeet Mitra will join the company’s board of directors.
KEY QUOTES
“Owning a laundry business is one of the purest expressions of the American entrepreneurial dream, and provides an essential service woven into the fabric of our everyday lives. These entrepreneurs — from first-generation owners to multi-unit operators, community anchors to tech-driven innovators — all share the same relentless drive. I couldn’t be more thrilled to partner with Sumeru to invest deeper in our industry and to bring a level of innovation, support, and service that these operators deserve.“
Alex Jekowsky, Co-Founder & CEO of Cents
“Alex, Gilli, and the Cents team have built the go-to operating system for modern laundry and garment care. This is a critical, global industry that has benefited from Cents’ innovation in digitizing operations and payments technology so operators can run their businesses better around the clock. Cents took an operator-first mindset and invested heavily to build its category-defining product suite — enabling laundry and garment care SMBs to grow, manage, and understand their businesses like never before. We are excited to partner with the company and look forward to seeing what the team builds next for this growing customer base.”
Chris Litster, Growth Partner, and Nathan Stanley, Principal at Sumeru Equity Partners
