Key Takeaways
- Seattle’s Felix&Fido emerged from stealth mode Thursday with $4 million in pre-seed funding from PSL Ventures and Rover.
- The startup is led by a former U.S. Army infantry captain and Expedia operations executive.
- It aims to address the veterinarian shortage via subscription-based pet care with telemedicine, in-clinic, and at-home services.
A new Seattle startup backed by Rover wants to take a bite of the growing pet care industry and address a reported veterinary shortage.
Seattle startup Felix&Fido emerged from stealth mode Thursday, announcing a $4 million pre-seed round led by PSL Ventures and Rover to boost the rollout of its subscription-based pet care services.
The investment from pet sitting giant Rover is a vote of confidence in the nascent company that aims to offer telemedicine, in-clinic, and at-home services, depending on a pet’s needs.
Each pet care option exists in some form at other companies, but the ability to package them all under a single membership offering is a novel concept in pet care, said CEO Gavin Woody, who spoke with GeekWire from Alaska after finishing a 300-mile race on skis.
Woody is a former U.S. Army infantry captain who parachuted into Iraq in the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He graduated from West Point with a degree in mechanical engineering in 1999, then received a MBA from Stanford in 2007.
Woody was a consultant at McKinsey and Co., and worked at Expedia, A Place For Mom, and most recently Porch, the Seattle-based home improvement marketplace.
Both of Woody’s parents are veterinarians: his mother tended to smaller animals and his father focused on larger ones. He also co-owns a cattle ranch in an unincorporated town named after his great-great grandfather, Woody, in California.
“Animals have been in my blood my whole life,” said Woody, a pet parent to two cats (Amelia and Jamba) and a bearded dragon (Cactus).
The pandemic caused a surge in pet ownership, with more than 23 million pets adopted by Americans during the pandemic, or about one in five household. This worsened an existing shortage of veterinary workers. A report by Mars Veterinary Health found that nearly 41,000 additional veterinarians will be needed by 2030 to meet demand.
Industry consolidation and the resulting economies of scale squeezed veterinarians into shorter consultation times, leading to a reported decline in service quality. Woody said the appointment duration for his mother’s vet work was reduced in half, from 40 to 20 minutes.
Felix&Fido’s multi-layer model aims to address these pain points by attracting veterinarians and minimizing operational costs. Here’s how it works:
- The startup can preserve clinic capacity for procedures by offering at-home services for minor operations like nail trims.
- Virtual appointments let the company handle basic check-ups, pre-screenings, and follow-ups, extending the range of customers it can service. This also attracts a set of veterinarians who want to work from home.
- It can capture the value of large procedures with its brick-and-mortar locations, helping boost revenue.
The 16-person startup sells three membership tiers based on the number of consultations and other care: Entry ($176 per year), Essential ($446) and Enhanced ($653).
The company invested heavily in its consumer and veterinarian-facing tech. The goal is to create a pet care experience similar to One Medical, the primary care company recently acquired by Amazon, Woody said.
“We believe Felix&Fido’s model represents a major breakthrough for an industry in urgent need of innovation,” Geoff Entress, managing director of PSL Ventures and Felix&Fido board member, said in a statement.
The company plans to open its first clinic in Issaquah, Wash., in May. Its mobile nurse unit is already serving several Seattle-area cities.
Felix&Fido’s launch comes at a time when people are spending more on their pets. From 2013 to 2021, the average annual household spending on pets rose from $460 to $770, up 67%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A 33% increase in pet healthcare service spending is expected over the next decade, according to the Mars report.
About a third of the $120 billion pet industry is made up of the veterinary space, Woody said.
“There’s a massive shift to the humanization of pets — people are moving from pet owners to pet parents,” he said, noting that veterinarians are at the center of the trend.
Woody teamed up with CTO Ian Ma, who previously held technical leadership roles at eBay, Amazon and Seattle startup Tribute; and Shlomo Freiman, chief veterinary officer who has been a practicing veterinarian for nearly three decades. He’s also an inventor with two veterinary tech-related patents.
Rover has only made one startup investment previously, leading a $7 million round in DogHero, a Latin America pet care marketplace.
Asked if the company plans to implement or market the service on the platform, a spokesperson said it has no day-to-day management involvement with Felix&Fido.
Rover co-founder and board member Greg Gottesman is the managing director at Pioneer Square Labs. Gottesman helped spark the idea for Rover at a Startup Weekend event in Seattle in 2011.
Felix&Fido will compete against giants such as Vancouver, Wash.-based Banfield, which sells subscriptions and operates more than 1,000 hospitals.
There are several newer startups with the goal of modernizing veterinary care, including Modern Animal, Small Door, Bond Vet and Pet Folk.
