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Venture Capital News: Vetted Announces $3.3M Seed Round

2017-08-03
LOS ANGELES, CA, Vetted, the rapidly growing in-home vet care platform, today announced a $3.3 million dollar Seed round of funding.
The round was led by Foundation Capital, with Amplify LA also participating in the round. Vetted provides pet owners with high quality, on-demand and affordable veterinary services and video consultations in the comfort of their own homes. Vetted will use the funds to expand its services to new regions, recruit additional highly trained veterinarians and to launch better solutions for pet owners and their pets.

Currently serving areas of Los Angeles, with plans to rapidly expand regional in the coming weeks, Vetted offers convenient and affordable in-home veterinary services that include wellness exams, non-emergency sick visits, vaccinations, diagnostics and treatment, so pets can have comforting, one-on-one attention in their own homes rather than enduring the stress of the traditional vet's office. Vetted's veterinarians are all highly educated and trained, and are hand-picked by the Vetted team to offer the best possible healthcare experience for pets and their owners.

CEO and cofounder Karan Aneja, who also cofounded Portea Medical, South-East Asia's largest home healthcare company, had the idea for Vetted after his dog Gobi got sick.

"It was 5:30 in the evening, and our local vet was closed, so we had to go to a chain. We waited for hours with other sick animals in line, and Gobi was getting more stressed by the minute," said Aneja. "After running through a series of mandatory protocols and imaging tests, we were given a $680 bill and told it was simply indigestion. That was the moment I knew there was a fundamental issue in this industry that I could help transform."

He took the idea to cofounder, Ali Shahid, who had significant experience launching small business products while working with Intuit in California and Singapore, and more importantly, had a deep affinity towards pets, having grown up with dogs, cats, ducks and even a gazelle. Together with leading vets in the Los Angeles area, Aneja and Shahid developed a new model for bringing high-quality veterinary care directly to people's homes.

Vetted has been able to recruit a core group of leading professionals, ranging from industry veterinarians who have seen the profession deteriorate over the past 12-15 years to progressive vets who have been disenfranchised by the overwhelming rise of corporate veterinary care over the last few years, all of whom believe in the company's mission to fundamentally change the way that vet care is provided.

"We're providing a personalized experience for pets, in the comfort of their own homes, in way less time and with less stress than the other options available on the market right now," said Shahid. "To the pets, the vet is just another house guest. Most of the time, they don't even realize they've been examined at all. Plus, by removing infrastructure costs and bringing the full suite of veterinarian services straight to people's homes, we've been able to cut the price of overall care by 50%."

Currently 92% of pet owners decide to use the Vetted service again within six months, citing the ease of scheduling appointments instantly from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., avoiding waiting rooms and the dreaded ride in the car, letting their pets heal at home, and instant follow-up care and questions answered via videoconferencing as the main reasons they have made Vetted their go-to veterinarian solution.

Along with being a better, more convenient option for pets, Vetted is transforming the veterinarian practice itself. Vetted allows veterinarians to focus on their craft rather than upselling their patients -- providing better care for pets and their vets. Vetted's founders have been highly selective in their veterinarian recruiting process to maintain the highest level of standards and care, but are quickly growing throughout Los Angeles and plan to launch in Orange County, California next month.

"Unlike corporate hospitals that make vets follow unnecessary procedures and sell products, Vetted gives us ownership over the most important thing -- the care itself," said Vetted veterinarian, Dr. Sabrina Castro. "Taking pets outside of their homes increases their stress, and can make it harder to diagnose conditions accurately. With Vetted appointments, we are able to spend an hour of quality time with each pet and pet parent, answer all of their questions, and provide a quality of care that just isn't feasible inside the walls of a traditional, busy vet's office."
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