laundry
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Vestacy
Advent International carved four household cleaning icons out of Reckitt, handed them to a former Louis Vuitton chief, and told 3,000 people to act like founders. The result is Vestacy - a $4.8 billion bet that old brands can learn new speed.
Poplin
Poplin is a nationwide app-based laundry marketplace that connects households with vetted, background-checked local 'Laundry Pros' who pick up, wash, dry, fold, and return laundry - typically within 24 hours - for about $1 per pound with free pickup and delivery. Founded in 2018 as SudShare by father-and-son duo Mort and Nachshon Fertel, the company rebranded to Poplin in 2023 and now spans 500+ cities and 8,000+ zip codes, powered by a network of over 100,000 independent Laundry Pros who work from home using their own washers and dryers.
Mort Fertel
Mort Fertel is the co-founder and CEO of Poplin (formerly SudShare), a nationwide peer-to-peer marketplace often called the 'Uber for laundry,' which connects customers with independent Laundry Pros across 500+ markets and 8,000 zip codes. Before laundry, he spent two decades as a globally known relationship expert and author of the Marriage Fitness system, used by millions in marital crisis and the subject of the documentary 'Back from the Brink.' He started Poplin in 2018 alongside his teenage triplet sons after his wife, drowning in laundry for their five kids, asked why she was still washing clothes like her grandmother.
Ajay Prakash
Ajay Prakash is the Co-Founder and CEO of Rinse, a tech-enabled clothing care company that has raised over $70 million and operates pickup-and-delivery laundry services across major U.S. cities. A Stanford GSB MBA alum (Class of 2010), he returned to his alma mater as a Lecturer in Management, teaching Startup Garage: Design — an intensive course where student teams build and test real-world business concepts. Before Rinse, Prakash worked at Bain & Company, Berkshire Partners, and briefly interned with Bonobos (where he became an early angel investor). He holds a BA in Economics with High Honors from Dartmouth College and has been featured on NPR's 'How I Built This' with Guy Raz.