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Tracking Pet Startups
& the Pet Tech Industry


 

 📈 US pet spending: a tale of two stats


Just about every article involving the US pet industry mentions that over $90 billion is spent on pets annually. The source for this number? The American Pet Products Association (APPA), a group of pet product manufacturers that puts on the annual Global Pet Expo.

However, there is another person tracking the US pet market who rarely gets mentioned: John Gibbons, aka The Pet Business Professor.  The professor has worked in the pet industry for decades and now spends his days analyzing government data.

The Professor recently released his 2019 numbers on his blog and they are quite different from the APPA counts. Details of both are below:

 
  Pet Food & Treats Supplies & OTC Medicine Vet Care Other Services Total
APPA $36.9 billion $19.2 billion $29.3 billion $10.3 billion $95.7 billion
The Professor $31.2 billion $16.8 billion $21.8 billion $8.6 billion $78.4 billion


The $17 billion disparity appears to be the result of using different sources of data.

The APPA gets its data from several sources, but primarily relies on three market research companies: Nielsen, Euromonitor and Packaged Facts.

The Professor uses data from the annual Consumer Expenditure Survey conducted by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. This is a survey given to about 7,100 households each year. 

Impossible to say who is more accurate, but both amounts clearly establish that Americans are spending gobs of money on their dogs and cats.  

 
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💰 Pet deals & financing

 
  • Heska, a Colorado-based manufacturer of diagnostic equipment for vets, has acquired Lacuna Diagnostics, a startup that provides a digital cytology service to vet clinics. Cytology involves looking at cells to make a diagnosis. Lacuna was an alumni of the first Leap Venture Studio cohort for pet startups.
  • BlueNalu, a San Diego-based company that makes lab-grown seafood for pets & humans, scored $60 million in financing. BlueNalu was a member of last year's Purina Unleashed pet startup accelerator.
  • Go Dogo, a Danish startup developing AI games for dogs, secured €9.1 million ($11 million USD) in funding. The founder of the company is a professor who created the device to entertain her two Whippets.
  • Dog Chef, a Belgian startup that creates and delivers fresh food for pets, has raised €1 million ($1.2 million USD). The company was founded in 2017 and serves customers throughout Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and France.   

📰 Other News

 
  • SkipTown, a high-tech, membership-model dog care club in Charlotte is expanding to Dallas, Nashville and Atlanta. The company offers a new twist on dog care in its 24,000 square-foot facility that includes an indoor/outdoor dog park, dog groomers, and a bar for pet parents. The company has VC backing from Techstars and Bull Creek Capital. 
  • Pets at Home, the UK's largest pet retailer, saw third quarter revenue surge to £302 million ($413 million USD.)  The company operates 453 retail stores, many of which also contain a vet clinic and grooming salon.
  • Dogness, a manufacturer of smart pet feeders, will start selling their products through Petco's 1,600 retail stores.
  • Interview with the founder of Austria-based GPS pet tracker Tractive.

💼 Pet Industry Jobs

Thanks for reading! 

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