New Zealand Start-up brings ‘21st century service into old school’ laundry industry  

The Australian dry-cleaning and laundromat industry is quietly being disrupted by a New Zealand-founded start-up, named Laundromap.

It is a tech-first, on-demand dry-cleaning and delivery service that operates through a mobile app in Sydney, Perth, Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch via a network of traditional retail businesses.  The theory is that there’s a significant group of high-income people who need and want their clothes laundered, yet struggle with the traditional system of dropping off and picking up their clothes from these businesses, while being restricted by limited opening hours.

According to CEO, Vlad Mehakovic: “The company is aiming to change the customer experience, while the dry-cleaning business is ‘very old-school’. Nothing of what we’re doing is ground-breaking in terms of the tech itself; we’re essentially applying modern practices to an antiquated industry. Effectively, we are bringing the dry-cleaning industry into the 21st century. One thing that we always wanted to be very careful of is the customer experience. What you find is that it’s very difficult to get people to leave a good dry-cleaner. They stay very loyal to that business because there’s a lot of trust with giving them your $500 coat or $1,000 suit to process.”

The company intends to expand its network of businesses which can be used via its streamlined app.