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Collin Furtado · · 8 min readBillion-dollar market in cleaning tech? This startup is betting on it and seeking $15m
SmartClean Technologies, a Singapore-based B2B cleaning automation startup, tells Tech in Asia that it is raising US$15 million in a series A round. The fundraise is a mix of equity and debt, with US$12 million in equity and US$3 million in venture debt funding.
The company is closing its debt fundraise this month, while the equity funding is expected to be secured by June.
SmartClean’s team in Singapore / Photo credit: SmartClean
Founded in 2017, SmartClean has built artificial intelligence of things (AIoT) and SaaS cleaning management products to monitor, measure, and manage commercial real estate facilities.
RealSense is the AIoT product consisting of hardware sensors installed in a facility that can sense if something is dirty and notify cleaning staff in real time. It can also measure the level of cleanliness in commercial buildings through CleanScore, a standardized metric created by the company.
The SaaS product, Matrix, is an operating system for cleaning companies and facilities management firms that enables them to digitize backend processes and track the hygiene level of their locations.
SmartClean says that it will use 60% of its series A funding to add 30 more partners to its network – the company’s primary sales channel – in the next 12 months. It will also be used to start operations in Australia, the US, and the Middle East.
The rest of the funds will be allotted for hiring, as the firm looks to grow its engineering, product development, and business teams by 3x. The company currently has 45 employees based out of Singapore and India, and it looks to scale its team to 120 employees globally.
SmartClean is already in eight markets via partnerships and plans to launch in over 30 countries by the end of this year. Some of its partners include Integra in the Philippines, Active Telematics in Malaysia, Ecocare in Indonesia, Powerful in Hong Kong, Verteco in the United Arab Emirates, and a robotics firm in Japan.
Hard to get a little VC money
Prior to its current fundraise, the company secured about US$3 million from three rounds of funding. In September 2021, SmartClean raised US$2.7 million in a pre-series A round co-led by Seeds Capital.
While SmartClean is in talks with several VC firms on its series A funding, CEO Lav Agarwal shares that it wasn’t easy for the company back in 2017 as it had only developed its hardware product – the sensors – at that time.
An employee holding SmartClean’s RealSense sensors / Photo credit: SmartClean
“Back then, even less than 5% of the VCs were actually interested in investing in a hardware startup. More than 95% of the VCs would straight away say ‘no’ if they heard that hardware was a main product of the company,” recalls Agarwal.
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We exclusively report that SmartClean is closing its venture debt fundraise of US$3 million, with US$12 million in equity funding to be raised by June.
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