Two women in Greeley, Colorado invented a laundry-folding robot and it just won two awards

Two women in Greeley just solved the chore that humanity has collectively despised since the invention of the dresser drawer: folding laundry. And the internet is losing its mind over it.

Eliszabeth Van and Katrina Hellmann are the co-founders of Origami Motion Inc., a Greeley-based startup behind the Ori-Smart Dresser, a robotic cabinet that takes your clean laundry, folds it and puts it away for you. You toss your clothes into the bottom of the unit, walk away, and when you come back the upper cabinet is filled with neatly folded garments. That’s it. That’s the whole pitch. And honestly, what else do you need to hear?

The Ori-Smart Dresser made its public debut at the Warehouse Innovation Showcase at the Forge in south Loveland in late August, where it swept two awards: People’s Choice and Most Innovative. The device is expected to retail for around $2,500, which sounds like a lot until you calculate how many hours of your life you’ve spent folding T-shirts into imperfect rectangles while watching TV. Big tech companies have been trying to crack automated laundry folding for years (remember FoldiMate’s $980 promise back in 2018 that never shipped?), but it took two women in Greeley to actually build the thing and win awards for it.

The company is still in its early stages, but the viral buzz has people already dreaming about an Origami Motion factory setting up shop along the Front Range. Colorado has given the world Crocs, the milkshake and now, possibly, the end of laundry folding as we know it.

You can check out a demo of the Ori-Smart Dresser on Origami Motion’s website at origamimotion.com.