Leap Ventures announces 3 pet startup
events (startups)

Leap Ventures is an organization that helps entrepreneurs focused on the pet industry. It has an incubator (helps flesh out your business idea) and an accelerator (ramps up growth of your existing business.)

Leap just announced they are starting to take applications for three events:

1. Pet Project Virtual Pitch – $25,000 in prize money. Open to pet startups less than 2 years old – ten companies will be selected to make a virtual pitch.

2.  Bootcamp for Female and/or POC pet care entrepreneurs. Startups must also have less than $500,000 in total investment or revenue.

3.  Venture Academy for Cats.  A one day virtual event for startups focused solely on cats or cats & dogs.

Since Leap Ventures started in 2018, graduates of their programs have included Pet Plate (pet food subscription), Mixlab (pet pharmacy), and Barkibu (vet telehealth). 

PetLove scores $23 million (pet ecommerce)

PetLove is the Chewy.com of Brazil. The online pet retailer has experienced massive sales growth due to the coronavirus, reporting that sales have doubled compared to the same period last year.

Connecticut-based private equity firm L Catterton, has invested $23 million in the company, less than two months after PetLove received a $48 million investment from SoftBank.

Both L Catterton and SoftBank have a history of investing in the pet space. SoftBank invested $300 million in dog walking service Wag, while L Catterton most recently invested €20 million in Butternut Box, a London-based monthly dog food subscription service.   

Barkyn combines dog food & telehealth and raises €5 million  (pet food, pet health)

Barkyn, a startup based in Portugal, announced a €5 million Series A round. The investment was co-led by Indico Capital Partners and All Iron Ventures, VC firms based in Spain.

Barkyn offers a monthly dog food home delivery subscription that also gives customers access to 24/7 telehealth care for their pets. The combination is apparently a hit, as the company has served almost 40,000 homes in Portugal, Spain and Italy since its founding in 2017. 
 

Pet health startup Dinbeat expands into human health (pet health)

Pet humanization is the concept where pet owners treat their pets as family members and want to provide these pets with human-like products or services. Examples include pet DNA kits, beer for dogs, cat counselling, etc.

Dinbeat is an example of the opposite concept: a pet product crossing over for use by humans. The Dinbeat UNO is a wearable device used by vets to wirelessly monitor pets’ health in realtime, gathering info such as heart rate, temperature, respiration per minute and other metrics. 

The Barcelona-based company recently received €500K to help validate its technology for human-use. If this proves successful, the company may explore creating a dog leash for kids.    
 

Snapchat’s new Scan feature will be able to identify dog breeds (pet services)

Snap announced a new feature that will allow users to determine a dog’s breed by pointing the app’s camera at the pup.

Snap partnered with Siwalu Software, the creator of an app that uses AI to recognize nearly 400 dog breeds from images. The German startup has also created software that can identify cat and horse breeds.