For the Love of Laundry: Announcing Our $140M Series C

By Alex Jekowsky, CEO & Co-Founder, Cents

Today, I'm filled with pride, gratitude, and excitement to share that Cents has closed our Series C with $140 million in new funding, the largest investment in the laundry technology vertical to date. I'm proud of our team for dedicating themselves to our mission, grateful to our investors for their conviction, and excited for what this means for our customers and the laundry industry.

This announcement is not just a celebration of our milestone. It is a testament to the health of our industry and an indisputable message that Cents is doubling down on supporting entrepreneurs and the fundamentals of what building a great business is all about.

How it started

Our journey starting Cents is no different from the average entrepreneur buying and opening their first store. I dropped out of college my sophomore year to start my first business, building payment software for that same school and many others. That company was acquired when I was 23, in 2019, and I found myself in my first corporate job at our parent company. A year before my exit, my brother-in-law Gilli (co-founder and CPO of Cents) sold his business, and he, too, joined his parent company and began his new corporate career.

Like many of our customers today, Gilli and I missed the creativity, hustle, and personal connections at the heart of building a business. That entrepreneurial itch is something that just never went away.

Everything changed for me when I first learned about the laundromat business. In late 2019, I had the opportunity to attend a Coin Laundry Association (CLA) event, meeting President Brian Wallace and 50+ SMBs in the Bay Area. As I learned more about the ins and outs of the industry, the more excited I became to buy my first store. As I got deeper, however, I was shocked at the lack of sophisticated tools available to support people like me, especially compared to the tech platforms that operators in other industries had access to.

Why now?

We started Cents five years ago not because operators lacked options, they were already building successful businesses, but because we believed the industry deserved more. We wanted to offer more than just hardware, more than just POS systems, more than just delivery and marketing tools. We wanted to build the first true all-in-one platform for laundry businesses, one that was obsessed with product, driven by value, and committed to real service.

Cents powers nearly 1 in every 6 laundromats in the U.S. and over 7,000 shared laundry rooms, but the stat I am most proud of is that over 99% of them have stayed on the platform. I attribute this to both commitment and character. Our commitment to this industry and our customers is unwavering, and the character of each individual on our team has been forged through resiliency and persistence in overcoming challenges. We raised this capital to, once again, raise the bar on what being a partner to our customers really means.

What we're investing in:

A new era of customer support: A product is only as good as the support behind it. From onboarding, customer success, and support, we will continue to invest heavily in building the best customer care experience in our industry.
Next-generation hardware: Continuing to modernize the in-store experience with the most advanced, affordable, and powerful connected hardware payment devices.
Empowering more entrepreneurs: From route operators, dry cleaners, tailors, and cobblers, Cents will be a home for every entrepreneur to succeed, and will always feel built for each owner.
Continued new product expansion: We will never be done building and solving for the continuously growing needs and ideas of our customers.
Massive developments in AI: Enabling the power of AI accessibility across the Cents platform to help operators automate tasks, optimize pricing, and gain sharper business insights.

Starting a tech company, opening a laundromat, launching a dry cleaner, running a route business: these are all expressions of the American entrepreneurial dream. Like our customers, we feel the weight of the responsibility we have to reliably deliver, transparently and authentically, at every turn. At Cents, our success is directly tied to the success of our customers and the industry at large. Every dollar we raise, every feature we launch, and every ounce of blood, sweat, and tears we pour into this business is for nothing other than the absolute love of laundry.

Read the full Cents Series C press release to learn more.

On behalf of everyone at Cents, we are grateful to have you in the fold!

— Alex 66929 - Fun image - bottom of blog-1