The vertical SaaS industry has taken off in the recent years and is set to be worth $402.4 billion by 2032. Vertical SaaS is essentially a product or platform that aims to serve specific industries, such as insurance or retail or hospitality. Toast, a software and payment solution provider for the restaurant industry, is a good example of a vertical SaaS company.
Even as there are different vertical SaaS firms for a variety of sectors, Noida-based Turns is looking to tap into the laundromat space, which itself is a huge market – estimated to hit $79.91 billion in size globally by 2027. Founded in 2022, Turns also focuses on the US and MENA markets.
Turns aims to help laundry and dryclean operators to grow their business, manage their operations and elevate the customer experience. It offers end-to-end suite of tools and integrated products for new age and modern laundry business to enable online scheduling, collect and reconcile payments, perform accounting, manage payroll, start pickup and delivery operations with dedicated driver app, order management, track machine usage and efficiency and hardware management among multiple other workflows.
“Our objective is to be one single system for new age laundry businesses to adapt and grow to scale their business by leveraging latest-generation technology solutions,” Turns co-founder Sukanth Srivastav told Entrackr.
He further highlighted that the Indian laundry market is highly fragmented and largely unorganized, whereas, the trend is very different in the US.
“Laundromats have been a cornerstone in American society,” he said, adding that setting up a laundry service in the US is a cost-intensive task as it requires acquiring high-end machines as well as large real estates.
Turns currently works with more than 100 businesses across over 10 markets, including India, Australia, EU, and the US.
The startup has so far raised $500,000 at a valuation of $5 million. The company is backed by known investors such as Better Capital and Point One Capital.
Srivastav disclosed that the company will soon be looking to raise fresh funds in the next couple of months. The raise could be in the range of $4 million to $5 million, he said, adding the company has already received a strong interest from investors.
In the future, the company plans to roll out hardware that can be connected to washing machines, allowing owners to better track the items and systems. It also plans to diversify its services to include marketing and advertising, and capital financing for buying machines, among other things.
Srivastav said that the company is mostly competing with the fragmented market, and custom software like MS Excel-based developed by individual business owners.
Some similar service providers in India are QDC and Fabklean, whereas in the US, there are firms like Cents, Spot, and Cleancloud. Cents last year raised $4.5 million in a funding round led by Bessemer Venture Partners.
