Wash Cycle Offers Clean Clothes to Customers, Clean Slate for Employees

Wash Cycle offers more than clean laundry delivered right to your front door. The Impact Economy start-up also offers new hope to people in need of a second chance.

Wash Cycle collects, cleans and delivers laundry using a team of orange-clad cyclists. Half of the company’s staff are people who were previously incarcerated, homeless or on welfare—groups that typically have trouble finding work. The company’s 80 percent employee retention rate shows that these workers are justifying their employers’ faith in them.

“I don’t think anyone here on our team would be in the laundry business if it were not for the impact we’re creating,” Wash Cycle co-founder Gabriel Mandujano tells Forbes.

The company launched in Philadelphia, and has expanded to Washington, D.C. and Austin, Tex. Wash Cycle now employs around 50 people, and its customer base has grown from residential deliveries to large-scale clients, including hospitals and universities.