NEW YORK — Cents, an integrated software, hardware and payments technology platform built for the laundry industry, recently announced the close of a $140 million Series C round led by Sumeru Equity Partners (“Sumeru”) with additional investment from Series B lead Camber Creek. The raise marks the largest single software investment in the laundry vertical to date, the company says, and accelerates Cents’ mission to bring modern technology to one of America’s most enduring and underserved small business sectors.
With more than 90,000 retail laundry businesses and hundreds of thousands of laundry rooms in multi-family communities across the U.S., the company says, the laundry services industry is an essential everyday service poised for technological transformation. The Cents platform combines AI-native business management software, proprietary hardware and integrated payments to give business owners tools to operate and scale.
“Owning a laundry business is one of the purest expressions of the American entrepreneurial dream, and provides an essential service woven into the fabric of our everyday lives,” says Alex Jekowsky, co-founder and CEO of Cents. “These operators — from first-generation owners to multi-unit operators, community anchors to tech-driven innovators — all share the same relentless drive. I couldn’t be more thrilled to partner with Sumeru to invest deeper in our industry and to bring a level of innovation, support and service that these operators deserve.“
Sumeru and Camber Creek’s investment will fuel Cents’ next phase of growth, the company says, including accelerating the Cents AI-powered product suite, deepening investments in support and customer experience, expanding its product line for laundromats and dry cleaners and doubling down on its partnership with route operators and equipment distributors. The raise also positions Cents to further invest in new and innovative payment hardware infrastructure, a proprietary technology the company says will create greater affordability and accessibility to modernized payment experiences for customers.
“Alex, (CPO and Co-founder) Gilli (Cherrin) and the Cents team have built the go-to operating system for modern laundry and garment care,” says Sumeru Growth Partner Chris Litster and Principal Nathan Stanley. “This is a critical, global industry that has benefited from Cents’ innovation in digitizing operations and payments technology so operators can run their businesses better around the clock. Cents took an operator-first mindset and invested heavily to build its category-defining product suite, enabling laundry and garment care SMBs to grow, manage and understand their businesses like never before. We are excited to partner with the company and look forward to seeing what the team builds next for this growing customer base.”
As part of the investment, Sumeru Managing Partner and Co-Founder Sanjeet Mitra will join Cents’ board of directors.
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