Food delivery service Just Eat is expanding into services with the launch of a laundry offering in the UK via a partnership with Laundryheap.
Initially launching in London, Just Eat will allow customers to request laundry and dry cleaning services all through the takeaway delivery app.
The move is part of Just Eat’s stated ambition of moving beyond takeaways into a broader provider of services including groceries and non-food retail, including pharmaceuticals.
“A lot has changed since we launched as a takeaway platform twenty years ago. Today, our mission is to be customers’ first choice for rapid delivery – whether it’s your Friday-night takeaway, a last-minute gift or now your dry cleaning,” said Caroline Bates, director of grocery and new verticals at Just Eat UK.
“We chose Laundryheap as our first services partner because they’re the clear leader in their category, already trusted by hundreds of thousands of customers worldwide.
“Just as we’re building Just Eat into the UK’s go-to convenience platform, Laundryheap is scaling fast internationally, and this partnership lets us both prove that model together.”
Laundryheap launched in 2014 as the ‘Uber for washing clothes’ app that provides laundry services collected, cleaned and returned in 24 hours.
The group picked up millions in VC funding and with that fuelled an acquisition spree that saw it consolidate almost the entirety of the nascent laundry app market with the purchases of competitors and international equivalents Wast, Lavoir Moderne, Oxwash, Laundrapp and GetLavado.
“Partnerships like this are central to how we grow. Just Eat gives us a direct line to millions of customers who already trust the platform for their everyday needs, and we give Just Eat a proven, scalable service to build its convenience ambitions on,” said Laundryheap chief executive Deyan Dimitrov.
“It’s a two-way bet: they’re backing a company that’s already the world’s largest in its category, and we’re backing one of the UK’s biggest consumer platforms. Wins like this underline our ambition to make outsourcing your laundry as common as ordering a takeaway – both of which give customers back more time to enjoy more interesting or important things.”
