Wassup, an on-demand laundry service provider, has acquired Doormint from its promoters and angel investors in an equity swap. Through this transaction, lead VC investors in Doormint — Kalaari Capital and Helion Ventures will continue to hold equity in Wassup.
The deal however, comes as a surprise, considering that DoorMint had shut shop last year. This acquisition gives the Chennai-based firm access to the startup’s infrastructure and roughly 2 lakh clients. However, the ratio for the equity swap has not been disclosed by the firm.
Commenting on this acquisition, Durga Das, Founder & MD, 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.
While commenting on this transaction, Rajesh Raju, MD of Kalaari Capital, said,
We believe in consumer and retail businesses that 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.
Wassup is present in 50 stores across 7 cities servicing over 3 lakh customers and claims to have washed over 50 Million pcs so far. The startup has raised seed funding from Das Star Ventures, and a bunch of angel investors. A couple of months ago, it had raised $3.2 million in Series A funding round.
Founded in the year 2011, Wassup is targeted at the growing middle class Indian. They offer services like laundry, dry cleaning, shoes and bag refurbishments along with doorstep service in seven cities. Since the company provides omni-channel services, one can either schedule a service on the app or their website. It has B2C and B2B customers from the hospitality industry in Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kochi, Delhi, Mumbai and Pune.
Wassup has made multiple acquisitions in the past, including Hyderabad-based Ezeewash in April last year. It has been actively scouting for acquisitions of laundry service startups, whose technological capabilities are high and have presence in markets where Wassup Laundry didn’t.
