With the new financing obtained, Digitail reached investments worth almost $14 million. Investors included, among others, Google, through its fund Gradient Ventures, byFounders and Partech. Atomico Principal, Andreas Helbig, joined the Digitail Board as part of the financing agreement.
Along with this explosive growth in pet ownership comes increasing visits to the vet, for anything from regular checkups and advice to emergency procedures. But veterinarians are struggling to cope with this demand. They are currently treating 30+ pets per day on average, equivalent to one every 15 minutes, which is contributing to capacity constraints and reports of increased burnout amongst staff. Veterinarians are three-and-a-half times more likely to commit suicide than the general population.
“What is exacerbating this problem is that the majority of veterinarians are still reliant on paper or use old, legacy systems to manage their workflows, things like scheduling, inventory management, invoicing, and patient record data entry. Unlike the medical industry at large, digital transformation is yet to touch large parts of the veterinary industry.” said Digitail CEO and co-founder Sebastian Gabor.
Digitail’s platform digitizes the administrative tasks of animal hospitals, from scheduling and record keeping, to inventory management, invoicing, and client communication. Pet owners can also get medical summaries directly to the Digitail app, and can communicate directly with their veterinarian in just a few clicks, where records and feedback can be easily tracked by both parties. These changes enable Digitail to offer a truly collaborative platform where all stakeholders work towards improving quality of life for pets.
Digitail works with over 750 clinics worldwide serving around 1.4 million pets. Accelerated by the pandemic, pet ownership across the world is currently booming, with the petcare market estimated to be worth $200 billion currently — and set to grow to over $300 billion by 2030.
“Consumer demand for petcare has grown tremendously — but the systems vets rely on to deliver care are not fit for purpose: they’re outdated, they most often still run on local servers in the clinic, and are built without the pet owner in mind. Digitail’s solution is so powerful because it addresses all these challenges: it’s cloud-first, and it covers absolutely all workflows end-to-end in the clinic, and in collaboration with the pet owners — from simple vaccine reminders to more sophisticated health records and inventory management”, said Atomico Principal Andreas Helbig.
Digitail will use this funding to further scale operations across US and Canada and continue its global expansion. The Series A funding will also allow Digitail to expand its product depth and feature range, further deepening the collaborative nature of its all-in-one platform.