NoScrubs, a technology company transforming the laundry service industry, announced a $2 million pre-seed funding round led by Initialized Capital with participation from Frontier VC.
The company’s transformative platform connects customers with nearby laundry facilities to deliver clean, perfectly folded laundry at unprecedented speeds and affordability, making traditional home laundry machines as obsolete as VCRs.
Created by former Instacart, Cabal, Amazon, Favor, and ThredUp executives, NoScrubs addresses one of life’s perpetual pain points. Americans spend 75,000 lifetimes yearly on laundry, making it the most dreaded household chore. And NoScrubs’ unique model utilizes a network of strategically located laundry facilities to reduce travel distances by 90%, enabling delivery speeds ten times faster than traditional services while maintaining superior quality and affordability. For under $2 per day, customers can eliminate laundry from their to-do lists.
While running geographic expansion at Instacart, O’Connor became frustrated with his laundry service, which averaged four-day turnarounds for upwards of $50. Then he realized that 95% of laundry machines are idle at any given time. Plus, existing services had incredibly inefficient last-mile distances, which resulted in slow turnarounds and high price points.
NoScrubs customers download the app, set a pickup time, and their laundry is returned perfectly folded within hours. The key to success was combining the utilization of existing laundromats for more localized service with new technology that automates much of the experience. The company’s value proposition resonated with Austinites, and it has grown 60% monthly since launching last year.
NoScrubs plans integrate robotics for delivery, having already completed successful pilot programs. And the funding will advance market expansion and technology development, bringing the company closer to its mission of making traditional laundry a thing of the past.
KEY QUOTES:
“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. 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?”
“Just as Uber, Instacart, and DoorDash won their markets by nailing customer convenience, we’re positioned to transform a fundamental aspect of daily life. Our vision is to democratize laundry service so people can spend more time doing things they don’t hate.”
- Sudhanshu Gautam, CTO at NoScrubs
“We saw firsthand at Instacart how much people value convenience. This is a much bigger market — people spend 5x as much time on laundry, and it’s consistently ranked the most dreaded chore. Not to mention, NoScrubs laundry is dramatically better at folding than most people, so we’re providing hundreds of hours saved per year AND a superior end product.”
- NoScrubs’ CEO Matt O’Connor
“Many attempts have been made to do laundry as a service well, but the market for this is still untapped. 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.”
- Zoe Perret, partner at Initialized Capital
