Mind the gap.
It is the phrase that greets you on the London Underground. It is also a pretty good way to describe what The Laundry Lady has been up to — bridging the gap between a laundry business born on the Sunshine Coast of Australia, and the busy households and cities of the United Kingdom.
Our founder Susan Toft has just wrapped up the trade mission leg of her UK visit, travelling as part of the Tribe Global Ventures London Mission, a delegation of founders serious about cracking one of the world’s most exciting markets. Here is what happened.
London Tech Week at Olympia
The centrepiece of the trade mission was London Tech Week, held at Olympia London in Hammersmith. As part of the Tribe Global Ventures delegation, Susan was in the room for the opening address and keynote, heard from Aravind Srinivas, Co-Founder and CEO of Perplexity, and spent the week in sessions on market entry, raising capital in the UK, building a local team, and the practicalities of doing business here — legals, tax, visas, the works.
The week was hosted largely out of Queensland House on the Strand, with evenings that included the London Tech Week party on the Southbank, a delegation dinner at Browns Brasserie at Butlers Wharf, and a “Scaling Beyond Borders” reception with Oury Clark and Airwallex.
The conversations, the connections, and the sheer density of the week reinforced what The Laundry Lady has believed all along: the UK market is ready, and the timing is right.
Tourist Detour: London Bridge to the Palace
Of course, no trip to London is complete without soaking up the city itself.
From the Thames riverbank and the iconic Tower Bridge, to a walk past Buckingham Palace, the visit offered a vivid reminder of just how much life happens in this city every single day.
Millions of people. Busy lives. Families, professionals, businesses, Airbnb hosts, sports teams. All of them with laundry. None of them with enough hours in the day.
Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds — Lots of Laundry, Lots of Potential
Some of the biggest opportunities for our service sit in the cities where busy is a way of life and a reliable, convenient laundry pickup and delivery service simply does not exist yet. Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds are exactly those cities.
Manchester is the UK’s second city in energy if not in name — a dense, fast-moving urban centre packed with young professionals, families, students and businesses. Birmingham is the UK’s most populous city outside London, with one of the youngest and most diverse populations in the country. Leeds is the powerhouse of Yorkshire, a city that has grown rapidly.
These are the kinds of cities The Laundry Lady was built for. Laundry taking up your weekends? Soon we’ll be there to take a load off your mind!
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