Pawscout Founders Selling their $13 Million California Mansion  (pet trackers)

Andrea Chavez and Daniel Putterman, the husband and wife co-founders of the Pawscout Tag tracker are selling their $13 million mountaintop mansion outside of San Francisco.

Useless fact: $13 million would buy you 650,000 Pawscout Tags

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-24/mill-valley-mansion-north-of-san-francisco-lists-for-13-million
 

PetPlate Closes $9 Million Series A (pet food)

Pet food startups continue to rake in the capital. 

Pet Plate, a NY-based pet food subscription service, secured $9 million in series A funding. The round was led by DFE Capital Management and 301 INC, the venture capital arm of General Mills.

To date, Pet Plate has served more than 9.2 million meals in 48 states and DC.

According to Packaged Facts, the $30 billion US pet food market is expected to grow 2.6% a year over the next five years.

Tech Problems Wreak Havoc for Petnet PR (smart feeders)

Petnet’s Smartfeeder went offline for a week this month and, boy did things get ugly.

On February 13, the company tweeted that they were investigating a system outage affecting its 2nd generation Smartfeeder.  The company did not tweet any updates for 5 days. Frustrated customers responded that calls to the company went unanswered and emails bounced, leading many to question whether the company was still in business. A few customers even threatened to file a class action lawsuit.

The tech issue was resolved within a week, but seems like some serious PR damage was done.  

https://twitter.com/petnetiosupport/status/1228190332912717825

PetSafe Launching 8 New Products at 2020 Global Pet Expo (pet gadgets, tech toys)

PetSafe, maker of all things pet, will showcase eight new products this week at the Global Pet Expo in Orlando, Florida. 

Four tech items are in the mix: 1) ScoopFree, a self-cleaning litter box with a safety sensor and health counter that tracks how often kitty uses the box; 2) Dancing Dot, an interactive laser cat toy; 3) Play Away Timed Toy Box, a customizable dog treat dispenser toy, and 4) Kibble Chase Roaming Treat Dropper, a mobile toy that dispenses kibble.     

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/petsafe-brand-to-launch-eight-new-products-at-2020-global-pet-expo-301011082.html

Waggit Ships its 1,000th Collar (pet trackers)

Waggit, a startup located in Boulder, Colorado announced that it had sold 1,000 units of its smart collar. The company launched on Kickstarter in May 2018 and has raised over $3 million to date.  In addition to GPS tracking capabilities, the Waggit collar focuses on the health of a pet, monitoring vitals, body positions and sleep quality.

Listen to founder Susan Sierota pitch her idea to investors on the Pitch Podcast. 

https://www.dailycamera.com/2020/02/21/boulder-based-waggit-sells-first-1000-digital-wearables-for-pets/

Cuss Collar Translates Barks into Curses
(pet gadgets)

The Cuss Collar is a dog collar that translates a dog’s barks into curse words. For each bark, the device will emit a cuss word, like the f-bomb, bullshit, or similar.
 
Naturally, the $60 collar is so popular that it has sold out. You can get on a waitlist for the next product drop on the website.  

https://cusscollar.com/