Bringing pets, pet owners and their vets closer together
Our investment in Petsapp
A few days ago, our portfolio company Petsapp came out of stealth as we announced that we led the company’s $4.4M seed round alongside friends such as ex-P9er Nico Wittenborn and his firm Adjacent, Todd & Rahul’s Angel Fund, Market One Capital, GFC and angels like Matt Robinson (GoCardless, Nested), Carlos Gonzalez Cadenas (Index), Ronen Givon (Rekki) and Diogo Teles (Avant Arte). You can read more about it here.
It’s no secret to anyone that vertical SaaS is an important investment category for us at Point Nine. We’re always on the lookout for industries where software companies can obtain very high penetration and “own their markets”. We had been looking at the pet industry for a while and as early investors in companies like Docplanner and Nexhealth, we saw so many analogies in Petsapp that it was no surprise it was love at first sight.
A pandemic led growth of pets
The pet industry is experiencing growth like never before. In the US alone, the market was estimated to be worth roughly $100 billion in 2020 and forecasted to reach $358 billion by 2027. Vet care alone in the US is roughly a $40 billion market. While the overall industry had been historically growing at roughly 6–7% year on year, it grew 25% during the year of the pandemic.
According to the American Pet Products Association pet ownership rose to 70% of US households with nearly 12.6 million households getting a new pet in 2020. The humanisation of pets is in full swing and with this sudden rise of pet ownership, veterinary clinics are absolutely swamped and struggling to keep up with demand. With veterinary schools struggling to churn out enough professionals into the market and growing concerns in the industry with high burnout and suicide rates, the industry is screaming for a solution.
As a pet owner, there isn’t anyone you trust more for your pet’s health than your vet. It’s time to empower the vets :)
Enter Petsapp ❤
Petsapp is the veterinary team’s newest team member. The Petsapp software helps clinics better manage their practice by streamlining communication between care teams and pet owners, making sure veterinary teams can control their workflows, managing their revenue and upsell while giving pet owners and their pets a much better customer experience.
You can think of Petsapp as a mix of Hubspot and Intercom. It sits on top of (and integrates with) a vet clinic’s PMS (practice management system) and becomes the system of action for vets, nurses and front office staff.
Pet owners can download the Petsapp mobile application and seamlessly interact with their vets through chat, video or by booking appointments on site. The app also allows pet owners to send pictures and videos of their pets to help vet teams triage the incoming inquiries. Pet owners can also pay for all services (appointments, procedures) and products (medication, insurance, wellness plans) they procure from their vets through the mobile app.
Our thesis
Building the vertical SaaS tool for vet clinics
The veterinary industry is extremely outdated when it comes to software. Most use outdated PMS’s that aren’t user friendly nor provide value add to day to day workflows and a myriad of point solutions for appointment bookings or SMS reminders. By bundling all these services in one single product Petsapp becomes a 10x better product with a 10x better experience for users whilst being much cheaper than buying multiple point solutions.
Clear founder market fit
It’s hard to find a better team to go after this opportunity. Thom Jenkins practiced as a veterinarian in the UK but also managed a couple of PE backed veterinarian groups in the UK and China. His co-founder Will has been building tech products for more than a decade at companies like Trainline and Passfort. Together they form a perfect mix of industry insights and tech and product expertise.
Embedding fintech products to increase ACV and TAM
We found it really fascinating at the time of the investment that Petsapp was processing a significant volume of a clinic’s revenue already. We believe this can lead to a drastic enlargement of the ACV per clinic and the TAM for Petsapp. We already see demand to include other financial products like insurance or BNPL.
Consumer upside
As Petsapp onboards vet clinics, it also onboards all the pets (and pet owners) they have a relationship with. Over time, Petsapp will be intermediating the relationship between clinics and millions of pets. We believe Petsapp will be in a great position to build products for pet owners and become a leading consumer brand in the space. Just look at all that customer love.
Welcome to the P9 Family to the whole Petsapp pack! We’re excited to support you on your journey to build a category defining company in the pet care space!
