Enlighten yourself by capturing latest News and unique articles from Business and Tech world daily on your mail box. Subscribe Siliconindia Dailydose Now!!
Mumbai: Mumbai-based Village Laundry Service (VLS), an Innosight Ventures portfolio company, has raised series A round of funding from Kensington Captial, Index Advisory and a private India-based investor.
The fund will be invested in rapid expansion of its chain of laundry kiosks, operated under the brand name of Chamak. Innosight Ventures, a unique venture capital firm that leverages the concepts of disruptive innovation and the unique experiences of their management theam to identify, incubate and fund transformational companies, founded VLS in 2008. The company received its seed capital from Innosight Ventures. The management team includes Hari Nair and Akshay Mehra, both with experience in the FMCG sector and brings their years of knowledge and expertise to VLS to achieve its goal of providing meaningful value to customers and making social impact.
It brings fast and affordable laundry services to consumers, including students and young adults, who desire high-quality cleaning but do not have access to their own laundry facilities. Its unique one-machine laundry kiosks are located in convenient locations, where customers can drop off clothes, have them washed, dried, ironed and ready for pick-up in 24 hours. The service operates booths in 3 cities, including Bangalore and Mumbai, and has grown from 3 to 20 stores in less than a year.
VLS also announced the name of its new Managing Director and CEO Sushil Mungekar, who is a co-founder and director at Index Advisory, a financial services advisory firm. He had served for five years as the Chief of Passenger car finance at Tata Motors earlier and will remain in the board at Index Advisory. He said, "I am excited to join VLS, whose Chamak laundry booths offer much needed affordable laundry services to consumers and whose franchise model gives entrepreneurs the opportunity to build a business with minimal startup costs and to share in VLS's long-term growth."
Hari Nair, Co-Founder, VLS and Venture Partner at Innosight, said, "We are thrilled to partner with Kensington Capital and the other investors in this round whose investments will accelerate the expansion of VLS and be a leader in the fast-emerging organized retail laundry market in India. Having Sushil on board will leverage the growth of VLS and its Chamak brand."
Boston-based Kensington Capital Holdings is a private investment office that makes investments across a wide range of asset classes, with a focus on emerging economies around the globe including Africa, China, Indonesia, India and Latin America. A spokes person for Kensington Capital said, "We foresee a lot of growth opportunities that lie ahead for VLS and the impact it will have on the lives of its employees and customers."
Index Advisory firm, founded in 2006, is a Mumbai-based advisory firm specializing in the field of financial services, healthcare and automotive sectors. They have a combined 80 years of experience in India and has incubated multiple startup businesses.
Processing .....please wait.. 
The article has been forwarded.... 
