'Clean' Startups Are Rising

Cheongso Research Institute Accumulates 2.3 Million Orders

#. Working mom Ms. A finds it impossible to do housework after taking care of her child after work. Especially cleaning is out of the question. Since she often ends up doing it all on weekends, her worries about raising her child in a clean environment along with the dust accumulating in the house kept growing. However, her concerns were resolved at once by a startup service. Through an application (app), she can call a cleaning helper that meets her desired date, time, and other conditions, making it possible to keep her home clean without much effort. Ms. A is even considering subscribing to this service regularly.

Startup services responsible for house cleaning are gaining popularity. Due to the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic, people are spending more time at home, and with the increase in single-person households and dual-income families, the demand for services that replace housework has significantly risen. The emergence of a younger generation, familiar with digital technology and unhesitant to use various innovative services in daily life, as the main consumers has also influenced the growth of cleaning startups. Consequently, competition among these services to differentiate themselves is intensifying.

According to the Life Research Institute on the 13th, the house cleaning service "Cleaning Research Institute" operated by this company recorded a cumulative order count of 2.3 million as of last month, showing a 20% monthly increase in customers compared to the previous month. The app has been downloaded 2 million times, with a 30% increase in downloads this year. Sales are growing 200% annually.

Cleaning Research Institute features an optimal matching algorithm system that connects customers with the best cleaning helpers and allows customers to use the service conveniently through the app. It enables users to call cleaning helpers whenever they want, and all helpers are directly trained to ensure high reliability. Currently, the service is available in most areas of the Seoul metropolitan area, with about 46,000 cleaning helpers active.

Home service platform Miso, which includes cleaning helpers, also recorded its highest-ever transaction amount in the third quarter. Miso's home service transaction amount was 11.5 billion KRW in Q3 2019, 14 billion KRW in Q3 last year, and reached 36.5 billion KRW in Q3 this year, representing a 2.6-fold growth compared to the previous year.

Miso is expanding from a cleaning helper service platform to a platform offering various home services such as moving, move-out cleaning, storage organization, wallpapering, and flooring. A Miso representative explained, "As people spend more time at home due to COVID-19, many customers are actively purchasing services related to their homes more than before, which is also a factor driving sales growth."

The service Hotelive, which cleans bathrooms and kitchens, is also attracting more customers. Posts in apartment complex internet communities inquiring about Hotelive service availability are steadily increasing. Hotelive is characterized by providing standardized, high-quality cleaning services comparable to hotel room cleaning for bathrooms and kitchens, which are difficult to clean and require regular maintenance.

An industry insider said, "Startups armed with innovative technology and ideas are changing the cleaning helper market and achieving growth," adding, "Based on the diverse needs of customers, service expansion and sustained growth are expected in the future."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.