London-based Oxwash has been going about its business when it comes to taking on the environmental trouble makers that the washing and dry cleaning sector has been long guilty of. While the site of a blue bucketed bicycle shuttling freshly washed textiles across town has become commonplace in London, Oxford, and Cambridge, the startup has raised £10 million in a Series A funding round aimed at expanding its services nationwide.
Founded in 2018 by former NASA scientist Dr. Kyle Grant and Oxford University Master of Engineering grad Tom de Wilton, Oxwash uses water-saving ozone technology to sterilize fabrics at lower temperatures, thermal and biodegradable chemical processes to achieve higher than medical-grade disinfection, dissolvable laundry bags, and electric cargo bikes for local pickups and deliveries.
Grant and de Wilton’s efforts are not only setting the industry standard when comes to clearing, but they’re also being recognised for it. With a B Corp impact score of 94.9, Oxwash has officially received the coveted certification and is the only laundry and wet-cleaning company on the planet to do so to date.
In just four short years Oxwash has gone from frustration with perpetually out-of-service washing machines to a B Corp certified service that is using cutting-edge technologies across the board to rethink how we keep our favourite duds clean and keep our favourite planet alive.
Having tested and refined its model in three key markets in the UK, it’s time for Oxwash to enter the next phase: nationwide.
Dr. Grant weighs in on just how and where the fresh £10 million will be allocated, “Up to 30% will be used for expanding our software technology capabilities, 30% for the deployment of our nationwide processing facility, and the remainder for business development and growth.”
In June of last year, Oxwash made headlines with a $3 million seed expansion round that saw notables including Holly and Sam Branson, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, Indeed.com founder Paul Forster, and Pinterest and Beyond Meat backers Future Positive throwing their weight behind the startup support. Not to be left out, Clean Ventures, Conduit-Ascension EIS Impact Fund, Pentland Group, and Leon Lewis of the River Island family fortune also jumped on the opportunity.
Fast forward to November 2021, and Oxwash decided to let the outside in via an equity crowdfunding campaign that saw £475,406.10 flow through the doors from 296 investors in less than 15 hours. the company conducted an equity crowdfunding campaign via Crowdcube and raised nearly half a million pounds from 296 investors in less than 15 hours.
Having surpassed a seed extension and two (more on that below) crowdfunding rounds, Oxwash is ready to call its recent funding round a Series A. The £10 million investment was led by Untitled VC, with 8 Dimension Ventures, System Capital Management, and Khimji Ramdas participating. Existing investors Access VC, Pentland Group, Ascension Ventures, Vala Capital, and Truesight Ventures all returned to the table, as did Holly and Sam Branson, Paul Forester, and Biz Stone.
While the company states it’s raised a total of £15.7 million to date, there’s another Crowdcube campaign dated 18 June of this year that accounts for £89,773.11 raised via 94 investors. When seeking more information and clicking on “View”, the deal seem to have disappeared and users are routed back to Crowdcube’s homepage. Where did this money go, and why is there no record of it to be found save for at Oxwash's company page at Crowdcube?
I've reached out to Oxwash for clarification and will update this story in due course.
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