Laundry Services Provider Wassup Secures $3.2 Mn From Refex Energy’s MD Anil Jain

Chennai-based on-demand laundry services startup Wassup has secured $3.2 Mn in Pre-Series A round from existing investors which includes Anil Jain (MD at Refex Energy), HNIs from India and the Middle East.

The company plans to utilise the freshly infused funds for expansion and to build a stronger management team.

Speaking on the development, Balachandar R, founder, Wassup said, “We have signed up interests and will be announcing the incoming investors soon. Also, the current funds will be utilised to consolidate our position as market leaders, increase distribution presence, invest in technology, team, and marketing.”

Founded in 2011 by Balachandar R and Durga Das, Wassup is an on-demand service provider which currently offers services like laundry, dry cleaning, shoes, and bag refurbishments at users’ doorstep. They have a young team of entrepreneurial professionals from hospitality, retail, and laundry industry.

Currently operational in seven cities – Chennai, Bengaluru, Delhi, Gurugram, Pune, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Cochin, Wassup eyes for pan-India expansion.They currently have 30 hyper local hubs/retail stores. The startup is looking to expand to 50 stores by the end of this financial year through their retail franchise model.

“Currently we are in 7 cities doing 1000 orders plus per day. We are looking at scaling up our business through consolidation, franchising, aggregation. With many on-demand laundries failing to survive, we are operationally profitable thanks to our hybrid model of B2B and B2C, which keeps us operational in the green,” said Balachandar.

Earlier in April 2016, the company had expanded its operations to Hyderabad by acquiring another on-demand startup Ezeewash in a full equity deal. Prior to that in November 2015, company had acquired Chamak. In May 2015, Jabong’s founders Pravin Sinha and Arun Chandra Mohan invested in Wassup.