The pet health Barkibu today announced a of 5.6M$ (about 4.7 million euros), led by TheVentureCity, MundiVentures, CDTI Innvierte and the co-founders of Barkibu, with the participation of Leap Venture Studio, which is made up of Kinship and the Michelson Found Animals Foundation, with the support of R/GA Ventures.
According to the company, this injection of resources will serve “to further its mission of empowering pet parents to identify and resolve pet health problems from the comfort of their own homes, with personalized health care that’s better, easier, and cheaper than what’s available today.” currently available”.
Barkibu, a pet tech based on artificial intelligence
Barkibu, based in A Coruña and founded by Pablo Pazos, Patricia Seoane, Enrique Torres, Álvaro Gutiérrez (co-founder and former CEO of Kiwoko) and María González, has a veterinary assistant that works with artificial intelligence 24 hours a day7 days a week, which asks users simple questions about their pet’s health and symptoms, analyzes the answers against thousands of similar cases, and provides advice on treatment and care, remote access to licensed veterinarians and complete coverage through pet insurance and different prevention plans.
The founders of Barkibu were looking for something in which to pour all their passion and potential: an idea to which they would dedicate most of their time, in which they believed and that made them fall in love. And there was only one idea that met all these requirements: to collaborate in improving the quality of life of animals and provide first-hand and easily accessible professional veterinary information.
Barkibu thus competes in the pet health market, valued at around 100,000 million dollars, through its holistic health platform. To do this, the startup uses machine learning on a library of more than 800,000 answered queries, to offer personalized attention on the health of pets. It does this by aggregating pet health data based on queries made by pet owners on its mobile app, as well as on veterinary clinic insurance reports.
Barkibu co-founder Pablo Pazos sums up the value of this approach, saying that “Our AI-powered telehealth reduces insurance operating costs and provides proprietary data to optimize insurance pricing and marketing. At the same time, we use data from insurance claims to validate and train our AI.”
The financing will allow Barkibu accelerate the expansion of its AI-based veterinary platform, expand the list of symptoms it can interpret through its AIVet feature (available globally) and grow its pet health insurance customer base beyond Spain into new European markets.
“With so many people choosing to own a pet during lockdown, pet health technology is on the rise”He says Laura Gonzalez-Estefanifounder and CEO of TheVentureCity, which participated in the latest funding round. “Because pet owners don’t view spending as optional, the industry is considered recession-proof and will thrive despite the current economic downturn we are witnessing.”.
The pet tech sector, or technology for pets, has skyrocketed during the pandemic: As pet owners increasingly embrace digital solutions, the pet tech market is expected to soar from $4.5 billion in 2018 to $20 billion in 2025, and is attracting investment from both venture capital and strategic players.
Stay informed of the most relevant news on our news channel
Facebook Comments
Disqus