On the 4th April 2021, we celebrated our seventh birthday! 🥳
When our founder, Avin, started Housekeep back in 2014, the home cleaning industry wasn’t working.
You might find a great cleaner – if you got lucky through a neighbour or a local website. You could get your house cleaned – but you had to remember to get cash out and trust a stranger with your keys. And cleaners could find work – but they had to travel all over the place and hope they’d get paid on time. Basically, you were more likely to feel exasperated than epic.
So in April 2014, Avin secured £0.5 million in early-stage investment and launched Housekeep: to do cleaning better.
Over the last seven years, we’ve been plugging away, building the tech & team that’s capable of delivering housework that, finally, actually, works.
We’ve now delivered well over one million cleans since opening, with an average clean rating of 4.9* out of five - making us the market leader in the UK’s £5bn home cleaning market!
We’ve built world-class tech
Ever since we opened, we’ve been building world-class tech to make the lives of our customers & cleaners easier.
In November 2014, we launched the world’s first mobile app for cleaners. Everything our Housekeepers needed to deliver 5* cleaning - customer addresses, cleaning instructions and job routes - were all included in the app.
We’ve continued to improve our cleaner app in the years since - customers and cleaners can now call & live chat to each other, plus cleaners can change their hours, book time off, or pick up extra jobs with just a few taps of a finger.
Our job route optimization technology, which we launched in March 2015, pairs local cleaners with local customers, and displays the most cost-effective travel routes. This technology has already saved cleaners over £5 millions of pounds in travel costs, and hundreds of thousands of hours on public transport. Plus it’s helped Housekeepers to reduce their carbon footprint with shorter, denser travel routes.
For customers, we’ve built the most comprehensive online cleaner management tools available anywhere. We launched the first online end-to-end booking for cleaning jobs back in 2015, and our online account (which we also launched in 2015) allows customers to book, reschedule & skip cleans with just a couple of clicks.
We’re currently gearing up to launch our first ever app for customers later in 2021 - so keep an eye out for updates on that in the coming months.
We’ve onboarded the UK’s best cleaners
We wouldn’t be where we are today without the amazing work of our 5* Housekeepers.
Trusted, professional & vetted - our Housekeepers really are the best in the business. Between them, they’ve delivered over 1,000,000 cleans.
And they’re getting even better; when we hit 100,000 5* ratings back in 2018, our average clean rating was a strong 4.7*. When we hit 200,000 5* ratings in 2019, we had an even better average clean rating of 4.8*. As we approach 300,000 5* ratings, we now have a near-perfect average clean rating of 4.9* out of 5.
Now that’s housework that works.
We’ve become the go-to service for home & commercial services
Yep, we’re famous for our recurring home cleaning - but we’re also experts in specialist cleaning services. We’ve delivered thousands of 5* deep cleans, end of tenancy cleans & after builders cleans, all across London.
We’ve also got lots of happy commercial & office cleaning clients using Housekeep to keep their workplaces spick & span - day-in, day-out.
Plus we’ve got experienced, vetted & trusted tradespeople available through the service- including plumbers, electricians, carpenters, handypeople & gardeners.
We’ve opened everywhere in London… with new cities on the horizon
Ever since we completed our first clean in Islington back in 2014, we’ve always had ambitions to go national.
By January 2015, we were open in 25% of London postcodes. By March 2017, we were open in 50% of London postcodes. Now, we’re open throughout London & everywhere within the M25.
Plus we’ve got some really exciting plans to expand further in 2021, launching Housekeep Brighton later in the year.
If you’re Brighton-based, click here to register for early access.
And our hard work has been recognised on the national awards circuit
Let’s face it - there’s no feeling quite like winning a trophy 🏆
Over the last seven years, we’ve won more awards than we have shelf space for; we’ve been named Tech Company of the Year, Consumer Business of the Year, Scale Up Business of the Year & Startup of the Year - and that’s to name just a few. Plus we’ve featured in the Financial Times’s FT1000 list of fastest-growing companies in Europe...three years in a row!
It’s not just the business that’s won awards, either - our CEO & Founder, Avin, was also named as the UK’s Scale Up Entrepreneur of the Year in 2019.
Thanks to everyone who has made this possible
We wanted to take this opportunity to thank all the amazing Housekeepers, customers & staff who have helped us get here - without your hard work and support, this wouldn’t have been possible.
We’re looking forward to bringing you lots more exciting updates over the coming months - so keep your eyes peeled 👀
In the meantime, thanks for all the support so far, and we look forward to another seven years (and many more!) 🥂
The Housekeep Team