- Business
- Washhouse Co., Ltd. (6537.T) plans, develops, operates, and provides systems for remotely managed coin-operated laundry stores primarily in Japan. The company offers franchise business, whereby it provides a comprehensive franchise system to owners including centralized management of cash collection, cleaning, and maintenance via patented remote surveillance and control technology (patent numbers 3520449, 4172043, 4441796, and others); store management business, operating franchisee stores on their behalf; and company-operated stores business, directly managing its own locations equipped with washers starting from 300 yen for clothes and 700 yen for futons (35-46 minutes cycle), dryers at 100 yen for 7-10 minutes, washer-dryer combos for approximately 60 minutes, and sneaker cycles from 200 yen; it also maintains a mobile WASHHOUSE laundry service for disasters and provides an app for cashless payments and promotions. Founded on November 28, 2001 as KDM Co., Ltd. and renamed WASHHOUSE in 2005, the company is headquartered at 86-1 Shin-ei-cho, Miyazaki City, Miyazaki Prefecture, Japan, with branches in Tokyo, Osaka, Hiroshima, Fukuoka, Kumamoto, Oita, Yamaguchi, Nagasaki, and Aichi, operating over 614 stores across numerous prefectures including recent presence in Fukushima and Kagoshima as of late 2025. Recent developments include listing on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Growth Market in 2022 following its initial Mothers and Fukuoka Q-Board debut in 2016; establishment of WASHHOUSE Miyazaki factory and WASHHOUSE (Thailand) Co., Ltd. in prior years with global expansion ambitions including U.S. markets; release of the WASHHOUSE app in 2020 enhancing digital payments and promotions like free laundry events tied to local partnerships such as Kagoshima Prefecture mutual aid consultations in November 2025; receipt of approximately 4 million yen in funding in 2024; and ongoing store openings with sales performance showing year-on-year growth in early 2025 months including 110.1% in August and 106.9% in September.