The Vets, a tech-enabled pet healthcare platform that provides at-home care, has raised $40 million in seed funding led by Target Global, PICO Venture Partners and Bolt Ventures. Founded last year as part of co-founder Target Global’s venture building program, the team of co-founders including CEO Daniel Sagis, COO Dori Fussmann and Target Global aims to transform pet care by combining technological innovation and at-home care.
The company provides the ability for pet owners and practitioners to discuss medical conditions and preventative care while observing pets in their home environment. Visits include full diagnostics, such as blood workup and capturing vitals. The Vets notes that aggregating data from these care visits allow for more accurate diagnoses and healthcare predictions, along with analysis of possible trends by breed.
Since its inception, the company has expanded to nine major cities, including Miami, Tampa, Dallas, Austin, Houston, Portland, Seattle, Las Vegas and Denver. Starting today, The Vets’ services are now available in New York City as well. The company plans to offer its services in 25 cities by the end of the year. The Vets has served more than 7,000 pets to date.
The startup also aims to address the growing issue of burnout among veterinarians. In order to do so, The Vets promotes a four-day workweek and a daily appointment limit for veterinarians to ensure that they aren’t being overworked.
“For too long, veterinarians have been overworked, underpaid, and under-appreciated. At our core, we believe happy, healthy pets come from happy, healthy vets,” said Daniel Sagis, CEO and co-founder of The Vets, in a statement. “This funding round will further position The Vets as the next generation of pet healthcare, leveraging preemptive technology, allowing us to strengthen our footprint and penetrate new markets much more efficiently and effectively.”
The platform allows customers to schedule in-home visits to receive numerous services for their pets, including wellness exams, home lab tests, microchipping, vaccinations and health travel certificates. Practitioners are also able to provide client education, nutrition information and more. The company says that bringing pet healthcare into customers’ homes allows the veterinarian to develop stronger relationships with pets and also ensures that the care is being provided to pets in a comfortable and stress-free environment.
Shmuel Chafets, chairman at The Vets and co-founder at Target Global, told TechCrunch that the seed funding expands the company’s capability to attract, train and grow its team. He also noted that funding will support initiatives in building its consumer experience and expanding into new markets this year.
“We have an established R&D department consisting of veterinarians, software developers, data scientists and analysts,” Chafets said. “We plan on leveraging our data science capabilities to create personalized medical insights for our customers and their pets. This will enable our veterinarians to not only offer the best and most suitable treatment on a case-by-case basis, but to also detect disease trends, outbreaks and causes of emergence; thus creating a new standard for preventative pet care in the United States.”
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