Cents, a software, hardware and payments platform for the laundry industry, announced July 14 that it has acquired Insight Systems, a business intelligence and reporting platform for the garment care industry. The deal will fold Insight Systems’ data tools into the Cents platform for both laundromat and dry cleaning operators.
Insight Systems co-founders Wash Respess and Joe Patalano will join Cents as part of the acquisition, with Respess taking on the role of general manager of dry cleaning. According to the company, Insight Systems has recorded more than 21 million transactions across hundreds of locations nationwide.
 

The acquisition follows a $140 million Series C funding round Cents closed in March, which the company described as the largest single software investment in the laundry and garment care sector to date.

“From the day we started Cents, our mission has been to give independent operators the tools to run every part of their business with confidence,” said Alex Jekowsky, co-founder and CEO of Cents. “We’ve always believed better decisions start with better data, and Wash, Joe, and the Insight Systems team built the best reporting and intelligence technology our industry has ever seen. Bringing Insight Systems into Cents means our laundromat customers get even more powerful tools to understand and grow their business, and it gives us the foundation to build something the dry cleaning industry has never had. This is an investment in the customers we serve today and the operators we will serve tomorrow.”

For laundromat operators already using Cents, the integration is intended to bring data from third-party point-of-sale systems into a single dashboard, giving owners a fuller view of business performance.The platform offers four structured training levels covering the fundamentals of establishing and scaling professional laundry services, culminating in a certification that sets a universal baseline of excellence across an entire team.

Respess, who spent years developing Insight Systems alongside Patalano, said the pairing addresses a longtime gap in dry cleaning technology.

“I’ve seen dry cleaning from every angle: as an operator, as a product builder inside the software serving this industry, and as someone who set out to build what was missing,” Respess said. “What we built at Insight Systems is the foundation, and now, as part of Cents, we get to take it further. The industry has been waiting for this.”

Patalano, who has spent nearly 30 years building software for dry cleaners, according to the company, said the move gives Insight Systems more resources to serve the industry.

“When I met Alex and saw what Cents had built, the decision was clear,” Patalano said. “They’re not carrying legacy constraints, they have the team and capital to execute, and now we get to add the features advanced dry cleaning operations actually need, right into a platform that’s already proven with laundromats. Pair that with what Wash knows about running these businesses, and dry cleaners finally get a partner built for how they actually work.”

Cents said existing Insight Systems customers will see no interruption in service during the transition. The company reports it serves more than 5,000 garment care locations processing more than $1 billion in payments annually.