Canines are the most well-liked pet within the U.S.: 65.1 million households have one, in response to the American Pet Merchandise Affiliation. However whereas cats will not be far off, with 46.5 million households with one, lots of innovation within the pet class has targeted solely on canine. And even when the service serves each species, the main target is extra prominently on canine.
Sonya Petcavich, the founding father of cat-sitting app Meowtel, thinks that cats, and cat individuals, deserve extra.
When Petcavich’s cat Lily died in 2015, she realized she may not have been one of the best cat mother. Petcavich traveled loads for her job in gross sales for Philip Morris and wasn’t residence as a lot as she thought her senior cat may need wanted. She knew that pet-sitting companies existed, however she didn’t assume they did sufficient for feline mates.
“There must be a service for cat individuals particularly; they’ve very completely different wants,” Petcavich informed TechCrunch. “Rover had been round for a number of years, and Wag was choosing up steam, however they had been so canine targeted. I stated, ‘Fuck it, I’m going to be the loopy cat one that does this.’”
She took $100,000 of her personal cash, discovered a developer group and launched Meowtel in 2015. The startup is a market for cat house owners to seek out cat sitters and solely hires individuals who have direct expertise with issues like giving cats medication (cats are particularly liable to persistent sickness as they grow old) and taking good care of cats with particular wants. Potential sitters undergo a rigorous six-step course of till they’re allowed to hitch the app. This features a 30-minute name with the Meowtel group to confirm that they’re an actual particular person, one thing different sitting websites don’t do. Petcavich joked it’s simpler to get into Harvard than it’s to turn into a Meowtel sitter.
The corporate has been working largely in stealth since its founding. Petcavich stated the corporate solely got here out of stealth now as a result of for the final 9 years, the group has put within the work, constructed up its model and gotten its person expertise the place it needed it to be.
Meowtel is worthwhile and its gross reserving quantity income is rising 50% 12 months over 12 months. The corporate has greater than 2,200 sitters on the platform, a few of whom have been with Meowtel for all 9 years. The corporate has accomplished greater than 95,000 sitting requests and has largely targeted on greater cities, together with New York and Los Angeles. It’s trying to increase its paw print to smaller cities, too.
Meowtel has made it up to now elevating slightly below $1 million in enterprise capital. Of that complete, $500,000 got here from angels, together with Jason Calacanis’ Launch and Elizabeth Yin, a normal associate at Hustle Fund. Further capital got here from accelerator packages, together with Tech Wildcatters and Sputnik ATX. The corporate’s most up-to-date funding was in 2020.
Petcavich stated that elevating from VCs was robust as a result of the enterprise capital group is extra dog-centric and many individuals didn’t get why cats wanted their very own sitting service. Petcavich stated that even nonetheless, she needed to pursue enterprise funding for Meowtel due to its market enterprise mannequin, which she thought made it an excellent match for VCs. Additionally, as a result of capital-heavy nature of market companies, she thought VC cash made essentially the most sense.
She’s proper that there appears to be considerably extra venture-backed corporations targeted on canine than there are on cats. There are a number of startups targeted on areas resembling higher pet food, equipment and even ones targeted on well being. Butternut Field, a U.Okay.-based pet food firm, has raised greater than $466 million in VC funding. ImpriMed, a canine oncology startup, raised $23 million in November, and Fi, a wise canine collar, has raised greater than $40 million in enterprise capital.
As for the cats, there are noticeably fewer. Contemporary pet meals firm Smalls is without doubt one of the few venture-backed corporations within the class. It raised $19 million final 12 months, and its founder Matthew Michaelson informed TechCrunch’s Christine Corridor that he additionally thinks innovation within the pet class has largely been targeted on canine.
However does the market really want, or have the power to help, a sitting service only for cats? Petcavich says sure, and her firm’s success up to now and progress trajectory appear to again that up.
“Within the period of 2020, there’s a model that caters to each particular kind of viewers that exists,” Petcavich stated. “These species are completely different, however nobody is making that distinction. I believe it’s the psychology of the cat proprietor, the medical wants of the cat itself, that basically opened up this blue ocean.”
