Doormint, an on-demand laundry service in India that had raised US$3 million in funding from Kalaari and Helion, had shut shop in September last year

Wassup Laundry, an on-demand laundry and dry cleaning startup in Chennai, has acquired Doormint, another startup in this space that shut shop in September last year due to huge customer acquisition cost and cash burn, in an equity swap with its investors.

With this transaction, Kalaari Capital and Helion Ventures, who together co-led an investment of US$3 million in Doormint in April 2015, will receive equity in Wassup.

This is Wassup’s second acquisition following its buying of smaller rival Chamak back in 2015

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Commenting on the Doormint deal, Durga Das, Founder & MD of Wassup, said: “Wassup has a solid business model that is capable of scaling to be the market leader in this space. We thank all the stakeholders including our investors, employees, consumers and vendors for supporting us in this journey. We are happy to welcome Kalaari and Helion as part of our team and believe that they can add a lot of value in our journey to be the market leader.”

According to Rajesh Raju, MD of Kalaari Capital: “We believe in consumer and retail businesses which build sustainable long term value. We have seen the online laundry space go through rough times but believe that Wassup has a unique hybrid model with strong unit economics and a brand of national presence that can be leveraged to create a leading laundry brand in India. ”

Doormint was founded in early 2015 to provide doorstep home solutions at affordable prices. It was aiming to resolve household grievances of the always-mobile metropolitan populace through its mobile app and online platforms. The services offered were plumbing, appliance repairing, carpentry, pest control and laundry, among others. However, the company had to shut down due to cash crunch and inability to scale, among various other reasons.

The firm had also raised US$90,000 from Powai Lake Ventures and angel investor Utsav Somani, before Kalaari and Helion chipped in.

Founded in 2011, Wassup is an on-demand laundry services that is present in 50 stores across seven cities servicing over 300,000 customers. It has partnered with leading hospitality brands such as Taj, Oberoi, Marriotts, Sheraton, Radisson, Ascott and Holiday Inn.

Wassup is backed by individual investors, including Anil Jain (MD Refex Energy), BS Nagesh (Founder Trrain, Vice Chairman Shoppers Stop), Lalit Mangal (Founder of Commonfloor.com), Neeraj Gupta (Founder of FormulatePR), Praveen Sinha (Founder of Jabong), Ranga Iyer (former CEO of Wyeth),  and Mani Subramanian (former CEO of Barclays India Operations).

Last month, PickMyLaundry, an on-demand dry-clean and laundry services platform in India, acquired OneClickWash, a subscription-based laundry and dry clean startup in an all-cash deal. In February last year, Amazon India-backed Housejoy has acquired MyWash.in for an undisclosed amount.

Image Credit: Wassup

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