PHL Inno's weekly "Startup Spotlight" feature highlights founders and new businesses cropping up in the region.
The startup: The Rounds is a zero-waste refill and delivery service for everyday household goods.
Founded: 2019
Home base: Philadelphia
Founders: CEO Alex Torrey, and COO Byungwoo Ko.
Ko had a four-year stint working on the Uber Eats team before attending graduate school at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Torrey, who also attended Wharton, previously founded a startup that sold clothing and donated proceeds to art programs.
“I wanted another chance to put everything that I had learned from my first startup and be able to make a dent in the universe,” Torrey said.
Torrey has lived in city centers for about a decade, and finding everyday household items that can be transported without a car was a pain. Without a car, Torrey couldn’t buy in bulk, and often ended up paying more for smaller packages of household goods.
The founders didn’t like the model of other delivery services that used a lot of cardboard and single-use plastic, so he and Ko took the “milkman” model — two-way logistics for delivery and pickup — and applied it to household goods. The Rounds was first called Mlkmn before it rebranded in 2021.
“We’re essentially bringing the bulk store to you and keeping those bulk store prices — the warehouse store, the Costco-like prices — without the hassle of going to Costco yourself. And without all the packaging and plastic and cardboard and everything else that comes along with the trip to Costco,” Torrey said.
The product: The Rounds offers products like toothbrushes, snacks, hand soap, doggy bags, disinfecting wipes, sponges, toilet paper and trash bags in reusable containers that the startup’s employees drop off and pick up each week.
Customers return the containers to the company when they’re finished by leaving them outside their doors in provided reusable bags. Using e-bikes, the startup’s delivery team then picks up the items which are washed and refilled.
“We're called The Rounds because we literally make the rounds in your neighborhood on the same day,” Torrey said. “Every week, we drop off and refill and restock all of these essentials for you or your neighbors. We pick up your empties, and come back next week.”
The startup is able to sell in bulk by dropping off every item to customers on one day per week, making operations more cost-effective, he added.
The Rounds operates in Center City, South Philadelphia, West Philadelphia, Fishtown and Northern Liberties, and it has plans to expand to Manayunk and further outside of Center City. It also recently started operating in Washington, D.C.
It has “Neighborhood Refillment Centers” located in the Rittenhouse and Callowhill neighborhoods in Philadelphia, and in the Mount Vernon Triangle neighborhood in D.C.
The Rounds made Philadelphia its pilot city because it has a similar population density at a smaller scale, Torrey said.
“[Philadelphia] has a diverse population and allows us to make sure that what we are building resonates with modern consumers, not just one subsector of the market, because our mission ultimately is to make everyday sustainable choices effortless,” he said. “And we want to do that for everyone.”
Funding: Torrey declined to share how much the company has raised since its founding.
The goal: The Rounds is looking to multiply its 2021 revenue at least tenfold this year, Torrey said. He declined to disclose the startup’s revenue figures.
The Rounds will also expand to more cities this year, but Torrey did not say which ones.
“There's a lot of people in other places where we want to make sure we get our service to them as quickly as possible,” he said.
