Lavado Raises Pre-Seed Capital From Pepperfry's Founders The startup to utilize funds for expanding its operations

Mumbai-based laundry and accessory care service Lavado, on Friday, announced to have raised funds in a pre-institutional round from the founders of Pepperfry.com.

The company will use these funds to step up logistical coverage across Mumbai while simultaneously expanding its ecosystem of local laundry businesses.

"Lavado offers an end-to-end solution across all laundry and accessory care needs including clothes, bags, shoes, and other household items on a click of a button. The laundry business is largely unorganized today and our goal is to bring reliability and detailing into this business by standardizing processes and the use of technology across all our partner laundries. Our aim is to make the laundry experience seamless for our customers through the use of technology, transparent pricing, and a superlative on-demand customer experience. With these funds, we are looking to expand our services to Thane, Navi Mumbai &Vashi and soon we will raise series A for further expansion in other cities," said Disha Jain, founder, Lavado.

Lavado recently launched its mobile app to enable a seamless and transparent laundry experience for its discerning consumers.

"Disha has built a robust business model with Lavado, and with her keen understanding of the market, customer requirement, and industry gaps, we are confident she will change the course of organized laundry in India," commented Ashish Shah, co-founder, and chief operating officer, Pepperfry.

Disha Jain, founder and chief executive officer, Lavado, believes that clothes and accessories are the modern-day equivalent of Jewellery and need a similar level of detailing and reliability in its care. With an aim to provide such custom service, in 2017, she started her venture Elan Lifestyle, popularly known as Lavado.

In the last 4 years, the company has serviced more than half a million garments, thousands of shoes, and accessories. The bootstrapped venture has successfully established itself in the eastern suburbs and built a robust customer franchise with 70 per cent repeat rates and 99 per cent positive ratings.

"We think that the organized home laundry market is at a nascent stage, ripe for profitable disruption through technology. Given Disha's vision for Lavado, we believe she can cause this disruption and contribute to the rise of the category in India," added Ambareesh Murty, co-founder and chief executive officer, Pepperfry.

The laundry market in India is a $ 32 billion opportunity but does not see any large national players due to the complexity around logistics and standardized processes. Lavado aims to grab a large share of this market, one city at a time, through the use of technology and by putting in place standard inspection and communication checkpoints that are key to building a large successful laundry and accessory care business.