Pet Industry News
The deals, launches, and strategic moves behind the brands and operators shaping the industry.
Pets will shape travel plans for 68% of owners, Subaru survey finds
A Subaru-commissioned Talker Research survey of 2,000 pet-owning drivers, released October 13th, 2026, says 68% expect their pet to affect travel plans this year and 73% would drive instead of fly to bring the pet. New in this release, 10% may host, 10% may shorten a trip and 8% may skip gatherings. In our view, the trip-length and planning numbers are the ones sitters and kennels can use.
Pawsible Ventures' First Cohort Maps the Pet-Health Infrastructure Bet
Pawsible Ventures unveiled its inaugural cohort of eight pet-health startups on April 23, selected from several hundred applicants. The list clusters tightly around AI-enabled vet-clinic infrastructure — a thesis that is unusually concentrated for an accelerator and one that coincides with parallel moves from Mars and Kennel Connection on the same preventive-care layer.
Spot & Tango Makes Its First Above-the-Line Push as DTC Fresh Food Math Shifts
Spot & Tango announced its largest marketing investment to date: $3.5M+ in TV and OOH, plus field marketing. The push moves the brand from performance to brand at $100M+ ARR and signals that DTC fresh pet food is entering category-conversion mode.
PetPax Is Raising $1M on a Delivery-Form Wedge in Pet Supplements
PetPax Co., winner of the 2026 Purina Pet Care Innovation Prize Grand Prize, is raising up to $1M in pre-seed capital and has secured $200K of it since the March 26 win. The company's SupplaMelts oral-film delivery platform is a bet that compliance, not formulation, is the unsolved problem in pet supplements.
DeepScan Raises $3.5M to Push Canine cfDNA Testing Into the Vet Mainstream
DeepScan Diagnostics raised $3.5 million led by existing investor Calm/Storm Ventures, with additional participation from European family offices and Business Finland. The capital will fund expansion of the company's CFD cfDNA biomarker test from its current 100-clinic installed base across the U.S., U.K., and Finland.
The Bird Bath Launches Terminal, Putting EBITDA Multiples and Practice Data on a SaaS Price Tag
The Bird Bath launched Terminal on April 21 — a subscription platform covering roughly 37,000 U.S. vet practices, 80+ corporate groups, and an analytics layer with EBITDA multiples and transaction activity. Pricing starts at $299 per month with CRM integrations coming, changing who can act on deal-grade practice data.
Halo Collar 5 Closes the GPS Accuracy Gap. The Channel Question Is Bigger Than the Tech.
Halo Collar's fifth-generation product uses Swift Navigation's Skylark precise-positioning service to claim autonomous-vehicle-grade GPS accuracy, neutralizing the historical objection to virtual dog fences. The real contest ahead is service, subscription retention, and liability — not hardware specs — against Invisible Fence's dealer network.