Improving Pet Care: Matrix’s Investment in Fuzzy
We are excited to announce that we are leading an $8M Series A in Fuzzy Pet Health. Many of us at Matrix Partners are proud pet parents to both cats and dogs. As a result, we are intimately familiar with the experience of hauling stressed out pets to the vet and searching the internet for answers to pet health questions. When we first met Zubin and Eric and learned more about what Fuzzy was building, we quickly saw the big opportunity ahead of them and knew we had to be partners with them on this journey.
Market
Pets are big business and pet health leads the category. The U.S. pet industry, from a spend perspective, is large ($70B) and has consistently grown every year for the last 15 years — even through the financial crisis of 2008. And pet health, at $32B, is the biggest spending bucket within the broader pet industry market.
Growth in number of households with pets: Today, there are more than 85 million households in the United States with at least one pet, up from nearly 73 million in 2010. More importantly, this growth in pet households is occurring across generations, with the percentage of young adults (ages 18 to 24) that own dogs or cats growing from approximately 44% in 2010 to approximately 53% in 2017, according to Packaged Facts.
Innovation to-date in the pet space has enhanced many aspects of life as a pet-owner. In the last few years, startups have improved the process of purchasing food (e.g. Chewy), walking your dog (e.g. Rover/ Wag) and finding a place to board your pet (e.g. DogVacay). However no one has focused on addressing the critical relationship b/w the pet parent and the veterinarian with an eye towards improving pet healthcare. In fact, the industry as a whole has remained largely unchanged for decades.
Fuzzy Solution
Fuzzy offers two core products that are both available on subscription: Fuzzy Connect, a telemedicine service that is available nationally, and Fuzzy Wellness, which is offered at a price point of $39 per month per pet. With Wellness, you get:
- Unlimited access to Fuzzy Connect (a telemedicine product)
- 2 in-home vet checkups (one every 6 months)
- Top-brand anti-flea, tick and heartworm meds mailed to you every month
- All core vaccines and boosters, administered in the comfort of your home
- Annual heartworm, fecal, and FiV / FeLV testing
For the consumer, this is far more convenient than going to the local vet for basic preventative and chronic care. For the pets, no more getting stuffed into a crate and hauled off to a strange place. And for the vets and vet assistants, they get to interact with a far less stressed owner and pet, on a flexible schedule that works for them, using the software Fuzzy has built to automate traditional paperwork. It’s a big win for everyone.
Journey Ahead
What’s even more exciting, is that we get to partner on this journey with two great founders in Zubin and Eric. Beyond the product vision and operational chops they clearly have, they also bring to the table a tremendous amount of passion for what they do. It’s no surprise that the team they are building is world class (and hiring!) We could not be more excited to join the entire Fuzzy team on this endeavor to improve pet care. Woof!
