The enigmatic, unsustainable psychological attachment to pets, combined with the boom in pet ownership since the pandemic era of loneliness, means that veterinary practices are under increasing pressure.
Pet ownership is on the rise (56-70% US household penetration over the last 35 years). But vets aren’t enough.
To meet demand, vets currently need to see more than 32 patients a day, and by 2030, the U.S. will need nearly 41,000 more veterinarians on current trends.
Like doctors, veterinarians spend much of their day doing administrative tasks, but legacy systems squeak under the weight of the new work.
This outdated sector is ripe for technology companies. Rhapsody was acquired by Chewy in his second half of 2022. Vetspire has been acquired by Pathaway/Thrive (Vet Group). And ezyVet will be acquired by Idexx in the first half of 2022.
In our 2021 seed round, we covered Digitail, a Romanian startup automating veterinary management.
The startup has completed an $11 million Series A funding round led by Atomico. They join previous investors from Founders, Gradient and Partech. Atomico Principal Andreas Helbig will join his Digitail board of directors as part of the investment. Allison Pickens, formerly her COO of Gainsight, will join her new fund new-normal.ventures as an angel.
Digitail will use the funds to further expand its operations and develop products across the United States and Canada.
This SaaS solution combines a practice management platform, a “pet parent” app for pet owners, and a data hub that provides medical and business insights to veterinarians.
Veterinarians claim they can see twice as many patients using the software.
Digitail was founded in 2018 by Sebastian Gabor (CEO) and Ruxandra Pui (CPO). The two previously co-founded a development studio and IT consultancy, ITGambit.
Gabor says the company will start in 2022 with $150,000 ARR and will end in Q4 2022 with $1 million in ARR at over 700 veterinary hospitals worldwide using Digitail PIMS daily said he did. Currently, he claims he has over 1.4 million pet profiles on his Digitail in over 10 countries.
He says he was inspired to create Digital after a misschedule and having to completely redo a dog vaccination plan.
US pet care is estimated to grow from $118 billion in 2019 to $277 billion by 2030.
