On-Demand Laundry Startup Washio Raises $10.5 Million Led By Canaan Partners

On-demand laundry service Washio wants to be available in all the major cities throughout the U.S. With that in mind, the company has raised $10.5 million in Series A funding, led by Canaan Partners.

Founded a little more than a year ago, Washio has developed a service that enables users to schedule pickup and dropoff of their laundry and dry cleaning through a mobile app. It launched originally in Los Angeles, but over the last several months has expanded to San Francisco and Washington, D.C. Since last September, the company’s revenues have increased 8x.

But it’s not stopping there: According to Washio CEO Jordan Metzner, the company plans to use its new funding to expand to additional U.S. markets. Currently operating in just three cities, Washio is looking to introduce service in New York, Boston, Miami, Atlanta, Chicago, Austin, Denver and Seattle, among others.

The company is also looking to hire more engineers and drivers. It has about 20 full-time employees and 120 drivers on the road in its three cities today.

Metzner said Washio went with Canaan in part due to its early-stage investments in other marketplace startups, like Instacart, UrbanSitter and OneFineStay. As part of the investment, Canaan Partners principal Hrach Simonian is joining Washio’s board of directors.

Washio had previously raised $2.8 million in seed funding from Sherpa Ventures, Jerry Yang’s AME Cloud Ventures, Three Six Zero Group, Ashton Kutcher, Guy Oseary, Ron Burkle, Nas, Anthony Saleh, Larry Rudolph, Jay Brown, Zod Nazem, Troy Carter, Scooter Braun, Yael Cohen, Tom Ryan and Frank Cooper.

http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/09/washio-10-5m-canaan-partners/