For pet owners today, the options for spending money are endless.

From day spas to organic meals to orthopedic beds, dog and cat parents have access to a vast marketplace of offerings to pamper their furry friends. Consequently, we’re spending on them like never before.

Last year, it’s estimated that more than $320 billion globally went to caring for pets. By 2030, that number is projected to rise to nearly $500 billion.

Pet care startups, however, aren’t fetching as much attention as they used to.

So far this year, just more than $500 million has gone to roughly 50 pet- and vet care-related startups globally, per Crunchbase data. That puts 2024 on track for the lowest investment to the space in years, both by round counts and total funding, as charted below.

Who’s getting funded

Even with a funding slowdown, however, we did see a handful of companies raise good-sized rounds tied to pet health.

One of the largest financings went to Loyal, which develops medicines to extend dogs’ healthy lifespans. The San Francisco company, which picked up a $40 million Series B in March, is one of several startups with offerings for older pets that have raised funding in recent years.

Denver-based Sploot Veterinary Care, which offers primary and urgent care for pets, also landed $40 million in a January financing backed by consumer-focused investor L Catterton.

And on the business software side, MoeGo, a platform for pet groomers and other care providers to manage their services, picked up $24 million in a March Series A.

For a broader picture of pet-related companies getting funded, we put together a sample list of 10 that raised venture rounds this year.

A mixed record for unicorns and exits

The decline in pet-related funding comes amid a broader downturn in venture investment in consumer products and services, as VCs pour resources instead into areas like AI, biotech and cybersecurity.

But it wasn’t always like that. Historically, startups in the pet care space have raised considerable funding. Over the past five years, for instance, companies in the space raised over $6 billion and generated some big exits to boot.

Probably the biggest and most successful is online pet food and products supplier Chewy, currently a $13 billion publicly traded company. Originally a venture-backed company, Chewy sold for $3.35 billion in 2017 to PetSmart, which later spun it out as an IPO.

Another large funding recipient, pet care marketplace Rover, went public via SPAC in 2021. It lasted just over two years as a public company before private equity firm Blackstone Group took it private for $2.3 billion.

Other heavily funded companies didn’t do so well on the public market. Wag, a platform for finding dog walkers and care providers, is down over 90% since going public via SPAC in 2022. And shares of Bark (formerly BarkBox), a subscription service for dog products, are down 86% since the company’s 2020 debut.

Still a vast market

Less-than-stellar exits, however, should not be taken as an indication that people are lavishing less attention on their pets.

This is particularly true for the U.S. About half of pet owners not only consider their pets to be a part of their family but say they are as much a part of their family as a human member, per a Pew Research Center report.

Americans alone are expected to spend just more than $150 billion on their pets in 2024, per the American Pet Products Association. Of that, about two-thirds goes to food and supplies and another quarter to vet care. The rest goes to services like walking, grooming and pet-sitting.

It sounds like a huge number — but it’s also spread among an enormous number of pets. Today, an estimated 82 million U.S. households have pets, including 58 million with dogs and 40 million with cats (this includes some with both). Millions more care for birds, lizards, fish and other animals.

Of course, it should be noted that some of what passes for the “pet care” category is more for the gratification of humans. Feline apparel, for instance, is mostly despised by actual cats. And it’s unlikely the category of Halloween costumes for lizards (yes, this is a thing) is much appreciated by our reptilian companions.

Nonetheless, while we might find better use of our disposable income in some use cases, no one’s predicting a slowdown in pet-related spending. While investors may have less appetite in the current cycle, there’s still room for growth ahead for startups finding ways for pets to live longer, healthier, happier lives.

Related Crunchbase Pro lists:

• Pet- And Veterinary-Related Funding
• Pet-Related Companies That Raised Venture Rounds In 2024

Related reading:

• Old Dogs Can Inspire New Business Models
• AI Gobbled A Record Share Of Startup Funding This Year
• Cybersecurity Funding Jumps 144% In Q2

Illustration: Dom Guzman