Page 58 - CIJ June 2025-Digital Edition

LAUNDRY

Dhobi G – Rewriting the Rules

The Rise of a Revolution

What began as a shared struggle among three college students has evolved into Dhobi G — a tech-
powered, fully managed institutional laundry startup that is redefining how India perceives and experiences
laundry services. Based in Chennai, the startup recently emerged as the B2B winner at the prestigious
Startup Maharathi Challenge 2025, held at the grand Startup Mahakumbh in Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi.
Daksh Sabharwal, CMO, Dhobi G, shares the story with Clean India Journal.

hosen from over 2,400 startups,
Dhobi G was recognized for its
innovative, scalable, and empathetic
approach to solving the everyday
Claundry woes of students — a basic
but surprisingly underserved need. Union
Minister of Commerce & Industry, Shri
Piyush Goyal, presented the award,
celebrating Dhobi G’s transformative
work in a deceptively simple but
logistically complex industry.
“We were three college students, three
hustlers, struggling through the laundry
issue ourselves,” recalls Daksh, one of
the co-founders of Dhobi G, recounting
the genesis of their venture. The lack
of a viable laundry solution around
them, coupled with the observation that
everyone else faced the same problem,
sparked an initial curiosity. Further
investigation revealed a surprising
conundrum: despite immense demand,
existing laundromats were themselves
struggling financially.
“It was weird to see that there is a huge
demand for a solution, and the solution
is also struggling,” Daksh shares,
highlighting the critical unmet need that
Dhobi G set out to address.
Initially, the goal was a personal
solution. However, the sheer scale of the
demand quickly became apparent. After
exploring various approaches, including
e-commerce models, the team realized a
comprehensive ecosystem was necessary.
“Eventually we realized that if we
need to solve this, there needs to be a
whole ecosystem that caters to different
problems in the industry and accumulates
all the solutions together,” Daksh

58 JUNE 2025•Clean India Journal•www.cleanindiajournal.com