Technology
Veterinary software, diagnostics, wearables, telehealth and applied AI. The products being built for pet owners, clinics and insurers, and the business models behind them.
Start here
- Where the Pet Tech Money Is Actually Going
2025's funding recovery was a repricing, not a reflation. Where capital concentrated, and what it walked away from.
- Pet Wearables: The Business Model Problem Nobody Talks About
A hard retail price ceiling, subscription resistance, and a replacement cycle too short to earn back acquisition cost.
- AI in Pet Care: Which Applications Actually Work
The dividing line is who signs the check, not how good the model is. Clinic workflow survives. Owner anxiety does not.
- The Vet Telemedicine Shakeout
Three business models, none self-sustaining, and a 50-state regulatory patchwork that will decide the winner.
Key numbers
- 14k–24k
The projected US veterinarian shortfall by 2030. This is the demand that gives clinic-facing software a buyer with a budget. Source: AAVMC.
- 8
states expressly permit establishing a veterinarian-client-patient relationship virtually. The other 42 require an in-person exam first. Regulation, not product quality, caps consumer pet telehealth. Source: AAHA.
- 70.3%
of veterinary professionals report concern about AI reliability and accuracy. Even where the buyer and the budget exist, trust is the gate. Source: 2024 AAHA and Digitail survey.
- 11%
of pet M&A deal flow is software and tech, and it exits by absorption. Four of the 37 deals we recorded in 2026, three of them add-ons folded into a platform the acquirer already owned.
The final figure is our own count, from The Underbite pet M&A deal log, deals with a 2026 announce date through August 11th, 2026. The first three name an outside source.
Where the Pet Tech Money Is Actually Going
Pet tech raised $1.2 billion in 2025. Forty percent of that capital went to one category. The other 60 percent reveals what investors stopped funding.
The Vet Telemedicine Shakeout
Three business models compete in veterinary telemedicine: subscription, marketplace, and insurance-bundled. None has proven sustainable at scale. This analysis examines who's positioned to win, how state-by-state regulation creates moats, and what the vet shortage means for category trajectory.
Pet Health Monitoring: From Hardware to Outcomes
The pet health monitoring market is projected to hit $6.65 billion by 2031, but most companies in this space are still losing money. The hardware is commoditized. The real opportunity, and the real challenge, lies in turning sensor data into clinical outcomes that vets trust and insurers price.
Pet Wearables: The Business Model Problem Nobody Talks About
The pet wearables market is projected to hit $6.65 billion by 2031 — but the category keeps breaking the companies trying to capture it. Mars paid $117 million for Whistle and shut it down nine years later. This is what founders and investors need to understand about the structural business model challenges.
AI in Pet Care: Which Applications Actually Work
The pet AI market is projected to hit $2.5 billion by 2033, but most applications fail. The pattern that works: AI that augments veterinary professionals wins; AI that tries to replace the vet visit loses. Here's how to separate signal from noise.
Pet Tech Startups: Separating Signal from Hype
Most pet tech coverage lists who's funded. This analysis examines which business models actually work — from wearables to insurance to veterinary tech — and identifies the patterns that separate survivors from well-funded failures.