Recently, a startup’s profit report highlighted the ongoing battle in the competitive pet startup industry. Cat-sitting startup Meowtel and its co-founder Sonya Petcavich announced that they were profitable. They did so despite struggling to find investors in and around Silicon Valley. The reason Petcavich struggled to raise funds was because her company was only about cats, not about business potential or user base. At least, that was according to the founder, who announced online that most venture capitalists prefer dog-centric startups.
Petkavić may be right. Founded in 2015, Meowtel has raised less than $1 million in venture capital before turning a profit this year, about half of which came from angel investors and the rest from accelerator programs. Meanwhile, Meowtel’s rival, Rover, the world’s most popular pet-sitting startup, started out focusing on dogs, recently expanded into cats, and was acquired by Blackstone for $2.3 billion in late 2023.
Elsewhere, dog-related startups have been making headlines. A few months earlier, in March 2024, dog longevity startup Loyal raised a whopping $45 million in capital to bring a longevity drug for dogs to market. Others include canine oncology startup ImpriMed, which raised $23 million in November 2023. Smart dog collar startup Fi raised $40 million in venture capital. As for cat-related startups, funding is limited and the number of ventures is small. The only company that recently raised funding was Smalls, a fresh pet food company that raised $19 million in venture capital last year.
This amusing battle between dog and cat startups reminded me of the 2001 movie “Cats and Dogs,” in which both dogs and cats use spy tactics to stoke a fierce conflict. Who will win this war? The war is over the wallets of pet owners.
According to a study by Michigan State University, the US pet industry is expected to reach $303 billion in 2023, up 16% from 2022. And the startup industry is the driving force behind it. Besides pet sitting and walking services like Rover and Meowtel, there are startups offering remote pet feeders, water fountains, GPS devices to track your four-legged friends, vegan food, medicines, and pet supplies online. Plus, there’s a pet healthcare and insurance industry, which includes employer benefits, at-home testing kits, and personalized pet monitoring apps.
But in the United States, dogs and cats are equal competitors in this market. According to the American Pet Products Association, 86.9 million American households own pets. Dogs remain by far the most popular, preferred by 65.1 million households, but cats are not far behind at 46.5 million (the rest are pets such as birds, horses, fish and reptiles).
So why are dog startups so much more popular than cat startups? Is it because venture capitalists themselves subconsciously love dogs?
“There is a widespread cultural belief that the type of pet a person identifies with most, whether it be dogs or cats, says something about their personality,” psychology professor Samuel Gosling wrote in a paper studying the personalities of pet owners at the University of Texas at Austin. Gosling and his students concluded that “dog people” are more extroverted than “cat people.”
Venture capitalists, most of whom are Type A personality types, are more “dog people” than “cat people”? I don’t have any studies I can confidently cite, but for now I’d like to end this debate with a simple fact:
From GIFs to videos to photos, cats are by far the most popular form of popular culture on the internet. Don’t you agree? Take a look at the latest example, Cat-GPT (cat-gpt.com), a fun and cheeky chatGPT clone that serves up cat GIFs in response to queries, and currently has over 1 million users.
I asked Cat-GPT why dog ​​startups are raising more money than cat startups, and their answer was accompanied by a GIF of a kitten jumping out of a cardboard box: “Meow. Meow meow meow. Meow, meow meow meow, meow.”
Not one to give up, I tried again with the question, “Cats or dogs are more popular on the internet?” This time I was greeted with a GIF of a little cat jumping out from the corner of the couch and glaring at me, to which the cat replied with a knowing “Meow. Meow meow. Meow.” And that was it.
Shweta Taneja is a Bay Area-based author and journalist. Her biweekly column explores how emerging technology and science are transforming society in and around Silicon Valley. You can find her online at @shwetawrites. Opinions expressed here are personal.
