(PRESS RELEASE) The finalists of the Petcare Innovation Summit Best in Show Spotlight were announced last week ahead of the event taking place in Boston, 6-7 December 2022. The Spotlight provides the opportunity to hear from the most exciting companies in the petcare space currently looking for investment or partnership across pet health, nutrition, and products and services. To learn more about the event, click here.
In December, these 20 start-ups will pitch their innovations followed by questions from the esteemed judging panel to get to the in-depth details of their offering. The winners will then be selected and announced live at the event.
The finalists are:
- Animal Biome – AnimalBiome provides personalized health products and services rooted in the science of the microbiome to assess, restore and maintain the gut health of cats and dogs. More than 60 million pets have recurring digestive or skin conditions which account for more than 50% of all vet visits. The current solutions (diet change, antibiotics and steroids) provide only temporary relief and can cause long-term harm. The latest microbiome research indicates that these conditions can be better managed through the manipulation and restoration of the gut microbiome.
- Breed Science – Breed Science is on a mission to help dogs live longer. The company is redefining how parents and veterinarians support dog wellness by addressing the key epigenetic factors that affect longevity diet and exercise. Breed Science uses medical records, vet advice and diagnostic testing to individualize nutrition. Their own fresh food and supplements are shipped directly to dog parents. Breed Science also pushes wellness dashboards back into veterinary medical records enabling doctors to dynamically support wellness. Breed Science develops its own nutrition products, technology, and IOT devices including a wearable.
- Bundle x Joy – They are building the pet brand they wish existed, where nutrition meets purpose. They’re delivering joy to your doorstep with superfood nutrition across food, treats and supplements. They help you find the perfect bundle, so you and your bestie have more time for joy! They are proud to lead the industry as a female-minority owned business.
- Calviri – Calviri’s is the only platform for producing off the shelf therapeutic and preventative vaccines. They produce vaccines to treat and prevent cancer and diagnostics for early detection of any cancer.
- Chews Happiness – Chews Happiness is a social enterprise and business bringing wholesome, eco-friendly, sustainably sourced, “beyond organic”, handcrafted, SAFE, creations to dogs, supporting indigenous herders and small farmers in developing countries. Plant-based packaging. Accredited by the Pet Sustainability Coalition. Certified ZERO carbon business (Carbon Neutral). 1% For The Planet. 1% (min) to animal rescue. They are in the process of commercializing DigestaBone dog chews. Resulting from eight years of R&D, DigestaBone chews support Digestive/Joint/Skin & Coat Health and is the first all-natural, highly digestibly degradable, durable dog chew.
- Expercy – Expercy provide painless and surgery-free orthopedic treatment for minor fractures in petcare. OsteoBioGel is a thermoresponsive drug carrier that combines growth factors for bone fractures in petcare. More than 60% of U.S household own a pet and 1% of these pets (~850,000) suffer minor bone fractures as a result of various activities or accident. In comparing to the current surgical treatment for bone fractures, OsteoBioGel gives veterinarians an easy and direct access to fracture sites for promoting bone healing. We reduce discomfort for the pet and let them get back to being our best friends healthier and happier.
- Gentle Beast – Gentle Beast is a membership-based dog training, behavior, and wellness platform founded by Ben Green and Jon Portman in 2021. Their mission is to train humans to unleash the good in every dog – and they’re accomplishing that mission by making expert canine knowledge and instruction more accessible, affordable, and effective. Their technology builds a behavior profile for each dog and human pair, delivering thousands of possible interactive learning paths and tailored recommendations for partner products and services.
- Go Dogo – Go Dogo is the only brain puzzle any dog will ever need – it keeps dogs mentally fit and happy. Dogs need mental exercise. Most importantly, they need to train with their human(s), which is not only healthy but also important in order to strengthen the human-dog bond. It is however also important to feel in control of a situation and earn your own treats. Such independent problem solving is empowering and builds self-confidence. It is essential, but can be very hard to fit into a busy day, and the existing solutions are typically either too easy or too difficult and can be chewed up.
- Hilltop Bio – Hilltop Bio has developed novel cell-signaling technology to reduce inflammation & provide the necessary components to restore the animal’s immune balance. Their therapeutics are the only stable, room-temperature regenerative therapies for key inflammatory diseases. Some of the key inflammatory diseases their products are made to target include pain associated with OA and respiratory diseases. Their products accomplish this by reducing inflammation and normalizing damaged tissue function. Hilltop Bio has developed a strong pipeline of innovative therapies across many therapeutic classes alongside cGMP and cGTP manufacturing capabilities and a strong intellectual property portfolio.
- HiPets – HiPets is a SaaS-enabled marketplace for pet parents – for whom they reduce “pet care anxieties” by providing a fast track from symptoms to having a visit booked. SaaS for businesses (vet, groomer) addresses problems with utilizing their resources efficiently and handling Gen Z & Millennial pet parents.
- Innovative Pet Labs – Founded by scientists with decades of experience in diagnostic testing, Innovative Pet Labs seeks to transform pet healthcare by offering advanced at home health screening tests that give pet owners a deeper understanding of their animal’s overall health. We are direct to consumer but work in partnership with vets to help advance pet wellness. Our first to market product is a line of GI products that focus on Digestion/Absorption, Leaky Gut and Inflammation and Immunity.
- Jiminy’s – Jiminy’s is disrupting the pet industry – fighting climate change as we feed our pets! How? They make sustainable dog food that replaces traditional protein (cow / chicken) with insect protein.
- Joyful Pets – Joyful Pets connect people who need to rehome their pets with pet parents who are looking to adopt pets. They’re changing the future of pet adoption and rehoming and are on a mission to end owner surrenders to animal shelters by offering a loving alternative. The Joyful Pets peer-to-peer marketplace provides a safe and direct pet adoption platform – allowing current and new pet parents to facilitate rehoming without any intermediary. They also help pet parents take care of their pets through our pet parenting app, Social Petwork.
- MeowTalk – MeowTalk is a one-of-a-kind cat translator app and platform that has been on the market since 2020, with 17M+ downloads and lots of publicity. They’ve developed a proprietary Machine Learning model to interpret an individual cat’s meows and translate that into a human readable language on a mission to foster connection between cat lovers and their pet companions.
- MI:RNA – MI:RNA Ltd is a veterinary diagnostics company with a revolutionary new early disease detection technology. It is their mission to reduce disease through research and innovation, resulting in a cascade of ethical, environmental and economic benefits.
- PetPair – PetPair is a pet adoption marketplace that matches and transports animals from overcapacity shelters nationwide to fosters. These fosters generate content, their marketplace brings the adopters, and pets find their forever homes.
- Rescue Spot – Rescue Spot is revolutionizing pet adoption. They are a web and mobile platform that simplifies and streamlines the pet adoption process for adopters and rescues while connecting the two. They are the first platform that allows adopters & fosters to use a onetime application to instantly apply to pets, nationwide. Adopters, fosters and volunteers can also instant message with rescues, donate, see the status of their applications, complete adoption contracts and so much more!
- Tharos – Tharos are a novel approach to gut health. Improved carbohydrate digestion and rebalancing the gut microbiome. Enzyme Rich Malt Extract is used as a feed additive that helps break down complex carbohydrates in the animal gut and improve the balance of gut bacteria.
- Vidium Animal Health – Vidium Animal Health is bringing cutting edge genomic diagnostics to veterinary medicine. They have commercialized the best in-class, next-generation sequencing-based test to characterize all tumors in dogs. They also provide a histopathology service, utilizing some of the most respected names in the field. In development, they are preparing to launch a best-in-class liquid biopsy test that provides early screening for cancer in dogs.
- WulfTech – WulfTech develop advanced K9 health systems, toys and monitors for working K9 teams from Federal Government to State and local police and rescues teams. They have proprietary health sensors that can determine core temperatures within .02*F.
The Petcare Innovation Summit will be taking place in Boston on December 6-7 2022. The Summit focuses on showcasing and accelerating disruptive innovation and investment to improve holistic pet health. To register and save 10% with code PETSPLUS10, click here.
