Top Founders with Nathan Latka · 2026-09-17

How Does Laundry Software Make $60M a Year?

Alex Jekowsky, co-founder/CEO of Cents (trycents.com), an all-in-one POS, payments and custom on-machine hardware platform for laundromats, dry cleaners and multifamily laundry rooms. Revenue ~$0.7M (2021), $3M, $6M, $36M, $60M (2025). 99% customer retention, NDR in the 115-130% band, >20% EBITDA margin with ~80 employees at end of 2025. Started with a 73-store first customer and founder door-to-door sales using a gig-delivery integration as the wedge; bought a hardware company in 2024. Raised a $140M Series C ($110M + $30M employee tender) from Sumeru.

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7 tactics

Cents · B2B · software for laundromats

Sign a 73-store operator as your first customer and build with them

Got full access to their stores and back office; product a bit overbuilt but solid

“And most people say, "Don't sign the whale first. You overbuild. You have all these enterprise issues the SMB doesn't have." I challenge that by industry, because if you're if your first customer's a big enterprise customer, they tend to be invested in your success.”

Mixedfeature-developmentpositioning-niche

Top Founders with Nathan Latka · 2026-09-17

Cents · B2B · software for laundromats

Walk into laundromats and call them, pitching a no-labor delivery add-on first

Grew to about 80 stores and ~$700K revenue in 2021

“The way I did it was physically walking into stores, or going into the contact form on all their websites, if operators had them, or picking up the phone and calling the the the store.”

Workedin-personoutbound-sales

Top Founders with Nathan Latka · 2026-09-17

Cents · B2B · software for laundromats

Sell your own payment hardware at a profit, with software and payments attached

~$140M a month in payments; 200-250K devices installed; 99% customer retention

“Big push of revenue on hardware, but every hardware device that goes out there has SaaS and payments attached to it. So, you have this hit of revenue, and then the longer tail SaaS and payments uh, you know, revenue line flows from there.”

Workedupsell-expansionpricing

Top Founders with Nathan Latka · 2026-09-17

Cents · B2B · software for laundromats

Buy a hardware company when building your own hardware gets too hard

Revenue went from $6M to $36M the year of the deal

“Uh and while we made, you know, a couple million dollars of sales, and we were pouring a lot of money into the effort, realized best way to derisk and accelerate uh that execution was potentially through M&A. And that's what led us to kind of buying a business in 2024 that accelerated a lot of our hardware growth.”

Workedexit-mafeature-development

Top Founders with Nathan Latka · 2026-09-17

Cents · B2B · software for laundromats

Raise at a price investors can 4-6x, and turn down higher offers

Raised $140M at 10-20x revenue while profitable; guest says exit options stay open

“When we did this round, we said, "Here's this is the valuation we want to raise at and these are the terms we want to raise at." It wasn't if somebody offered 20% more or X percent this way or the other, didn't sway us. We had higher term sheets, we had different terms by different folks.”

Workedfinancing

Top Founders with Nathan Latka · 2026-09-17

Cents · B2B · software for laundromats

Set aside $30M of a funding round to buy shares from employees

$30M tender inside a $140M round; employee retention 98%

“and then also provide liquidity for some of our employees. We did an employee tender as part of this.”

Unknownfinancingteam-process

Top Founders with Nathan Latka · 2026-09-17

Cents · B2B · software for laundromats

Aim for $1M of revenue per employee and keep the team small

~$750K revenue per employee, 20%+ EBITDA margin, 98% employee retention

“But we'll never be happy until we at least hit a million of revenue for everyone headcount.”

Workedteam-process

Top Founders with Nathan Latka · 2026-09-17

Numbers mentioned

Subject	Metric	Value	Quote
Cents	revenue	USD 700K/year approximate	“I think we went from basically 0 to about 700,000 in 2021.”
Cents	revenue	USD 3M/year approximate	“And then 3 million, 6 million, 36, 60, and then it starts to really uh uh ramp and scale from there.”
Cents	revenue	USD 6M/year approximate	“And then 3 million, 6 million, 36, 60, and then it starts to really uh uh ramp and scale from there.”
Cents	revenue Year of the hardware acquisition	USD 36M/year approximate	“And then 3 million, 6 million, 36, 60, and then it starts to really uh uh ramp and scale from there.”
Cents	revenue	USD 60M/year approximate	“Yeah, '21, '22, '23, '24, and '25.”
Cents	growth rate 2025 revenue growth ($36M -> $60M)	+67%/year approximate	“And then 3 million, 6 million, 36, 60, and then it starts to really uh uh ramp and scale from there.”
Cents	revenue Host proposes doubling to $120M in 2026; guest says possible but not necessarily the right goal	USD 120M/year goal	“Can you double? Can you break 120 by December this year?”
Cents	revenue Sales of in-house built hardware before the 2024 acquisition	a couple million dollars approximate	“while we made, you know, a couple million dollars of sales, and we were pouring a lot of money into the effort”
Cents	retention Customer (logo) retention	99% approximate	“What we care about is we have 99% customer retention.”
benchmarkBest-in-class net dollar retention for SaaS (Bessemer, Insight benchmarks)	retention Net dollar retention	115–130% approximate	“I think best-in-class benchmark you see from Bessemer's website, or Insight, or anything of the kind of 115 to 130.”
Cents	retention Net dollar retention; guest says yes to being in the 115-130% best-in-class band	115–130% estimate	“Are you there today?”
Cents	team size	90–94 employees approximate	“we only have, you know, 90 or so employees, maybe 94 employees at the scale of revenue that we're at today.”
Cents	team size Guest corrects the host's 94-employee framing for 2025	80 employees approximate	“Well, technically we had like technically we had like 80 the end of last year.”
Cents	revenue $60M / ~80 employees	USD 750Kper employee /year approximate	“60 million divided by 80, I think, is about 750,000 of revenue per employee”
Cents	revenue Internal revenue-per-headcount target	USD 1Mper employee /year goal	“But we'll never be happy until we at least hit a million of revenue for everyone headcount.”
Cents	margin EBITDA margin, above 20%	20% approximate	“we're operating at at uh above 20% EBITDA margin”
Cents	retention Employee retention	98% approximate	“the best metric outside of customer retention is 98% employee retention.”
Cents	count Employees earning over $100K who have ever left	3–4 employees approximate	“I've only lost I think three, maybe four employees ever that make over uh 100 grand.”
Cents	funding raised Series C total including employee tender	USD 140M/one-time	“why would he go out and do the 140 million Series C?”
Cents	funding raised Series C close, including some secondaries	USD 110M/one-time	“we did a Series C close of 110 million and a $30 million tender”
Cents	funding raised Employee tender (secondary liquidity) within the Series C	USD 30M/one-time	“we did a Series C close of 110 million and a $30 million tender”
Cents	valuation Series C revenue multiple	10–20 x approximate	“Can I pin you down though and put you somewhere between a 10 and 20x revenue multiple?”
Cents	investor return multiple Target exit multiple on the growth-equity entry price, used to set the raise valuation	4–6 x goal	“can you get, if it's growth equity, can you get four to 6x that price in an outcome with enough of a buyer profile”
Cents	gmv Payments volume (card and cash) through Cents rails, largely driven by hardware	USD 140M/month approximate	“I think we're we're around 140 million a month uh o- o- or so right now.”
Cents	count Cents payment hardware devices installed on machines	200K–250K devices estimate	“It's 200,000, 250,000, some- something along those lines.”
Cents	customers Multifamily buildings whose shared laundry rooms Cents powers (nearly 7,000)	7,000 apartment buildingsper building approximate	“we power now, you know, nearly 7,000 apartment buildings, uh shared laundry rooms, college campuses, all of that.”
Cents	customers Early store count reached via founder-led selling	80 storesper location approximate	“And that is kind of what helped us build up, get about 80 total stores.”
73-location New York laundry operator (Cents' first customer)	count Locations operated by Cents' first customer	73 locations	“a a 73-store operator or a one-store operator are not remarkably different from a store operation standpoint.”