Where Smart Money Is Placing Bets In Pet Tech

Pet tech companies received $154M across 46 deals in 2016, the most dollars deployed and deals completed in the last five years. Pet tech companies like Rover, BarkBox, Vets First Choice, DogVacay, and Boqii have all received over $25M in funding.

We used CB Insights data to map investments specifically made by smart money VCs. You can see the full list of smart money VCs at the end of this post.

We define the pet tech category to include companies whose core business is using tech-enabled solutions to serve the pet owner market. This broadly includes e-commerce and subscription startups targeting niche pet retail; hardware startups providing food, training, toy, waste management, and tracking solutions; and mobile app and/or software-based platforms that connect pet owners with pet service providers (e.g. dog-walkers, veterinarians, shelters, grooming services, etc.) The category excludes traditional retail stores, food companies, and any other brick-and-mortar business which does not rely primarily on technology to serve the pet market.

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Smart money VC annual investment

Smart money VC investors have thus far only shown tepid interest in pet tech companies, participating in 2-3 deals a year since 2012. In 2016, smart money VCs participated in 2 deals, including a round to Pets Deli with participation from Index Ventures, and a $40M Series E round to Rover with participation from Foundry Group.

Mapped below in a business social graph are smart money investments since 2012. Benchmark has made the most unique investments, investing in both Swifto and DogVacay. DogVacay also received the greatest number of investments from smart money VCs, with First Round and Andreessen Horowitz investing, in addition to Benchmark. Foundry Group is tied with Benchmark for the most investments overall. Foundry Group invested in Rover four times.

Note: To analyze smart money trends, we looked at the activity of 24 top VC firms, selected according to portfolio valuations and investment outcomes. Some of the investors are linked to relevant research briefs. Here’s our full list of 24 smart money investors:

1. Sequoia Capital
2. Benchmark Capital
3. Accel Partners
4. Greylock Partners
5. Andreessen Horowitz
6. Union Square Ventures
7. First Round Capital
8. Bessemer Venture Partners
9. Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
10. New Enterprise Associates
11. Founders Fund
12. Lightspeed Venture Partners
13. Foundry Group
14. Index Ventures
15. Khosla Ventures
16. Social Capital
17. Emergence Capital Partners
18. True Ventures
19. Floodgate Fund
20. General Catalyst Partners
21. CRV
22. Spark Capital
23. Battery Ventures
24. Redpoint Ventures

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