Canadian Pet Tech Startup GoFetch Acquired
Vancouver headquartered pet tech startup GoFetch has been acquired by Future Pet Animal Health.
GoFetch operates an online marketplace for people to buy and sell pet care services including pet sitting, dog boarding, and dog walking.
Today’s acquisition news comes shortly after the company announced a $3.4 million funding round that valued the startup at nearly $10 million. Willson Cross, GoFetch’s 25-year-old co-founder and CEO shared the news in a LinkedIn post earlier today.
According to Cross, GoFetch’s decision to sell to FuturePet came down to the ability to realize the company’s vision and potential at a larger scale with a differentiated offering to customers. GoFetch recently launched a veterinarian offering.
Cross told Techvibes that competition from the US and stiff venture capital markets also impacted his decision.
US counterpart Rover.com has raised over $310 million to date and earlier in the year SoftBank invested $300 million into Wag!, a dog walking app. Both companies competed directly with GoFetch in Canada and have reported valuations of $1 billion and annual revenues over $200 million.
“What people tend to forget about online marketplaces is that scale and product development are a function of time. You need a product people actually care about and want to spend money with, and you need massive scale to satisfy the slim margins,” Cross told Techvibes.
“If you stop reading the quick case studies and start chatting with growth teams at the big Bay Area tech companies, you get a totally different picture… it totally makes sense when I see competitors like ours raise hundreds of millions.”
As part of the acquisition, a small group of GoFetch’s 30 employees will join FuturePet’s team, and GoFetch will carry on as an independent brand and wholly controlled subsidiary.
Cross started the GoFetch over three years ago after leaving Shoes.com. “Dropping out of school to join a startup, then selling one of my own has been nothing but fun. I don’t know why more Canadians in their twenties are not doing their own startup – the career trajectory and learnings are more than you would get anywhere else,” Cross told Techvibes.
Look out for Cross to start something new soon but in the meantime, you’ll find him mentoring friends through Cross Venture Group (CVG), an early stage incubator.
