11. Zipjet

Founders: Florian Färber and Lorenzo Franzi
Founded: September 2014
Website: www.zipjet.co.uk

Florian Färber and Lorenzo Franzi understand that modern life can be busy –juggling family life, a career and a social life. They started Zipjet with a simple aim: to give people more free time to focus on what matters to them.

Targeting business men, fashionistas and time-poor families with a lot of laundry, Zipjet is an on demand laundry, dry cleaning and ironing service that collects, washes and returns your laundry within 24-hours. Customers simply arrange a convenient pick-up slot on the mobile app or website and the nearest available driver is sent. Unlike competitors, the service doesn’t require its customers to itemise their order – just to chuck it in a laundry bag and await collection. Prices range from £2.20 for a single shirt to £14.50 to wash a fold an 8kg bag of laundry.

Currently only available in central London and Berlin (after launching there in January 2015), Zipjet already has 25,000 customers and is in the process of steadily expanding the area it serves. The firm will be vying for space with a number of other competitors in the London on-demand laundry market (including featured rival Laundrapp) – but by partnering with a number of local facilities, is able to reach a large customer base and keep running costs low. With new functionality just announced, including same-day delivery, the innovative business has big ambitions for the next 12 months…