A laundry startup sets its sights on the Triangle, planning a 2020 start in Raleigh
A fast-growing laundry delivery startup from Charlotte is bringing its services to Raleigh, and it wants to convince you to stop using your washer and dryer.
2ULaundry, which offers next-day laundry and delivery service via text message or through its app, plans to start operations in the eastern part of the Triangle early next year.
The company already has thousands of customers in the Charlotte and Atlanta markets and views Raleigh as the next logical place to expand because of its geography and demographics.
Founded by Dan Daquisto and Alex Smereczniak in 2015, 2ULaundry markets itself to people who don’t have time or simply hate to do laundry. Daquisto said the company goes after working millennials living in apartments and two-income households with kids who have expendable income.
“We went after people who already have a washer and dryer,” Daquisto said of the original business idea, noting the average family of four does more than 30 hours of laundry per month. He said the company now does around 80,000 pounds of laundry per month.
“They are buying back their time, instead of doing what is considered by them to be the most hated household chore,” he said.
The company plans to focus initially around Raleigh, Cary and Apex. It will look to move into Chapel Hill and Durham later.
The startup already has some ties to Raleigh. Its first round of investor money came from Full Tilt Capital, a Raleigh-based investment firm that was acquired by Morgan Creek Capital Management in 2018. In total, it has raised almost $9 million from investors, including a $6 million round in September, which is helping fund its expansion. Daquisto said he hopes to be in four to six new markets over the next 18 months, mainly around the Southeast.
While the company says it doesn’t compete with laundromats, it does have some competition from local dry cleaners.
“There are dry cleaners locally in every market that have some pick-up and delivery,” he said. “There is competition there. But there is not one dry cleaner that owns more than 1% of the market. It is very fragmented.”
The company charges a flat-rate fee for two sizes of laundry.
A large bag of laundry — about 35 pounds or roughly four to five washer loads — costs $35. A small bag of around 20 pounds — two to three loads — costs $25.
Dry cleaning varies by item, with shirts and pants priced at $6 and a two-piece suit priced at $12.
“I think 2ULaundry will do great in [the Triangle],” said Scot Wingo, the CEO and co-founder of Spiffy, a mobile on-demand car servicing startup.
“They [are popular] with working millennials and we have a great population there,” Wingo added. “It’s more convenient than a laundromat [or] dry cleaner to have it come to you at home or work.”
Daquisto said his company admires Spiffy’s on-demand service strategy and has gone to Wingo for advice. Like Spiffy, the company operates a fleet of vans that will soon be seen on the Triangle’s main thoroughfares — except instead of Spiffy blue, 2ULaundry’s fleet is pink.
2ULaundry employs around 110 people across all of its markets, 30 of them full time. It has already started hiring in Raleigh.
Daquisto said when it enters a new market, the company rents space at laundromats for the first few months, working late at night or on weekends when they don’t have a lot of customers.
During that time, the company looks for a permanent site. In Charlotte, the company turned a former McDonald’s into its laundry facility.
2ULaundry plans to roll out an aggressive marketing push in Raleigh, including discounted rates for early adopters, advertisements on social media and direct mail. The company also tries to ink deals with apartments and companies to offer its services as a benefit to residents and employees.
This story was produced with financial support from a coalition of partners led by Innovate Raleigh as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work. Learn more; go to bit.ly/newsinnovate
This story was originally published December 13, 2019 at 7:30 AM with the headline "A laundry startup sets its sights on the Triangle, planning a 2020 start in Raleigh."
