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Washio, the Uber for laundry, announced a $10.5 million round yesterday. The round, which was led by Canaan Partners, puts the Santa Monica company’s total amount of funding at nearly $13 million. Celeb investors like Ashton Kutcher and Nas participated in Washio’s seed round in January.
Right now, Washio app users in LA, San Francisco and Washington DC get laundry and dry cleaning picked up and delivered all within 24 hours. With the new funds Washio is targeting national expansion by launching in New York, Boston, Miami, Atlanta, Chicago, Austin, Denver and Seattle.
“We’re focused on growth and that’s our No. 1 objective,” co-founder and CEO Jordan Metzner said in January.
The 20-person fulltime team will be looking to beef up its force of drivers, or who they call ‘ninjas’ (because they deliver laundry oh-so-fast?). There are 120 drivers on Washio’s team in three cities today - a number that will quickly jump up along with the number of cities.
As a part of this most recent funding round, Canaan principal Hrach Simonian will be joining Washio’s board, bringing expertise from his work with same-day grocery delivery service Instacart and accommodation service OneFineStay.
