LaundryRepublic, one of the UK’s fastest growing businesses

A couple of weeks ago Ian Walker and David Lambert, the founders of LaundryRepublic, were invited to Accelerate 2013, a flagship event aimed at celebrating Britain’s business champions and their impact on the British economy. LaundryRepublic was named in the Accelerate 250, a group of the fastest growing businesses in the UK.

David and Ian received inspirational advice from business luminaries including Lastminute.com founder Martha Lane Fox, Cobra Beer chairman Lord Bilimoria, General Sir Mike Jackson, former Chief of the General Staff, and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales. In his keynote speech to the conference, Jimmy singled out LaundryRepublic as an example of the future of online business, having joined our laundry revolution at his home in London!

The LR team is very proud of their founders and I wanted to share with you their impressions of the day:

Ian: “Being selected as one of the UK’s fastest growing small businesses was great, but learning from the experiences of famous entrepreneurs speaking was even better. Being pointed out in the crowd and recognised by Jimmy Wales as an example of a company applying technology to transform a traditional industry was brilliant. Networking with other small businesses was very useful – lots of shared experiences and challenges to discuss!”

David: “It was tremendously exciting to be surrounded by other fast-growing, dynamic companies at Accelerate 2013. Getting to hear speakers of the calibre of Lord Bilimoria and Doug Richard was an invaluable experience, and quite inspiring. And of course it was a personal highlight to have our company, LaundryRepublic, singled out by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales as an example of the future of online business!”

From the LR team thank you very much to all of our customers who are making our laundry revolution possible!

LaundryRepublic, one of the winners of this year’s Smarta 100!

LaundryRepublic has been chosen as one of the Smarta 100! This is an annual prize to recognise the most resourceful, original, exciting and disruptive small businesses in the UK. We now have the chance to go one step further and grab the £10,000 first prize ‘Smarta 100, together with O2’ Business of the Year title. Voting runs until Friday 2nd of November, so help us climb into first place by voting us at: http://www.smarta.com/smarta100/2012/laundryrepublic

If you were trying to think of the most innovative sectors in the UK today, dry cleaning probably would’t come that high on your list. However, LaundryRepublic has been nominated for and won several other awards to be one of the most innovative small businesses since it started in 2008. The business won Best Business for Innovation at the South London Business Awards in 2010 and The Innovation Award at the Lambeth Business Awards in the same year. The business was also runner up in the Best Micro Business category at the Green Business Innovators Awards in 2010 and was finalist at the News On The Block Property Management Awards 2011-2012 in the category of Contractor of the Year.