California based startup DogVacay has married dog boarding services to the sharing economy trend and announced on November 13 that their firm had gotten $6 million in Series A funds from Benchmark Capital.
Previously, DogVacay received $1 million for an initial seed round from Science, Andreessen Horowitz and other investors. The latest injection of cash will be put to good use by helping the startup build a strong foundation for growth by upgrading technology use in its platform, and adding staff to the marketing and customers services departments.
Aaron Hirschorn and his spouse founded DogVacay after their own dog sitting experience. He explains that, “It’s more and more clear that we’re solving a very large problem that people all over the country, and really all over the world, are facing. There are 78 million dogs in the U.S., that’s more than there are kids, and people need help taking care of them when they travel or during the day. We’re disrupting it, but in a great way. We now have thousands of pet sitters across the country, who set their own rate, who watch dogs in their own home and it ends up being half the price of a kennel.”
DogVacay realizes that pet owners are concerned about the safety of their dogs so the company is very focused on the quality of homes that are available to their users. The company has a process that allows for it to sift through all available hosts to select the best ones for their site. The site has a “online application, a phone interview, reference checks, web training, and other checks” before approval and also has reviews, ratings and interviews for hosts.
Hirschorn says that, “Over three-quarters of our people are not professionals, they’re regular people. And these people do it because they love it, and I see these long journal entries that accompany the daily photo update that tells you what the dog did that day, it just means a really great customer experience.”
Dog hosts also get a good quality service from DogVacay. For 15 percent of their fee, the dog sitters can set their own rate and have clients come to them. In most cases the average price on the site is $28 per night and according to Hirschorn this is half of what kennels will charge.
The American Pet Product Association says that Americans spending on pet grooming and boarding was $3.5 billion in 2010. The total pet market is a $50 billion industry and DogVacay wants to get a slice of the action. Hirschorn adds that, “Our focus is on quality, where from day one we never let people on the site unless we had reviewed them and vetted them, no pun intended. And that makes for a great customer experiences that people are talking about, 90 percent of our growth has been word of mouth”.
The future looks bright for the start up thanks to the new injection of cash. The site has also entered the Canadian marketplace and is adding new cities to its network all the time and ensuring that the company expands quickly and become the leader in its sector.
Source: BetaKit
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