A hunt for a good vet during the pandemic led to the launch of Vetic

Four-month old pet care startup Vetic recently raised $3.7 million in a Seed round led by angel investor Lachy Groom. The round also saw participation from other investors such as Utsav Somani, Partner, AngelList India; Nitin Saluja, Founder of Chaayos, and Ritesh Agarwal, CEO, OYO.

Launched in August 2022 by Gaurav Ajmera, Vetic aims to provide best-in-class medical care for pets. The startup currently has a total of five centres across Gurugram and Noida, with one of the centres serving 24x7. Gaurav hopes Vetic will soon have one round-the-clock centre in every city. 

Vetic has so far served more than 3,500 pets across 10,000 visits in the last 120 days.

The company will use the fresh funds to bolster its technology, establish state-of-the-art medical infrastructure, as well as fuel the geographical expansion of its clinic network across Delhi NCR and Bengaluru regions. 

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In this week’s Turning Point, we spoke to Gaurav to understand how he came up with the winning idea.

The Eureka moment

Like many first-time pet parents, Gaurav adopted a beautiful Himalayan Cat—Simba—during the COVID-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, Simba got unwell within his first week at home. This is when Gaurav started looking for the right vet. 

“There was no recognised brand, and relying on referrals from friends and community, I visited 5-6 different vets before I could get Simba the right treatment. It took me 25-30 visits in the first 60 days to get him well,” he says.

“This experience exposed me to glaring gaps on the pet health care side, specifically as compared to human health care. The medical infrastructure, knowledge gap and convenience for pet parents, is way off, and hence presented an opportunity to create a pet health care brand to ensure every pet gets best health care,” the founder adds. 

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The journey so far

Vetic provides the full stack experience through its modern tech-enabled clinics which are a one-stop solution for all pet care needs—consultation, diagnostic tests, vaccinations, and complex surgeries, among others. The pet clinics are equipped with a pool of experienced and multi-disciplinary veterinarians.

Additionally, Vetic is pioneering quick commerce for pet food, where it delivers pet food and accessories to pet parents within two hours.

Vetic has also launched its app, which is available on both Android and iOS platform.

“It's first of its kind app which enables effective and convenient pet care management, backed by great health care facilities. The app enables seamless appointment booking (minimal waiting time), pet health record keeping and managing multiple pet profiles,” Gaurav says in an interaction with YourStory.

“We have received an overwhelming response from pet parents and the community, due to its relentless focus on pet experience, which is highlighted by its high NPS (90%), organic repeat and positive word of mouth across the pet community,” highlights Gaurav.

A majority of Vetic’s customers (>95%) are dog or cat owners. However, the startup has also seen customers bring in birds or rabbits for treatment. 

Gaurav, an alumnus of IIT Delhi, has held executive positions at two unicorns—at OYO as COO India South Asia Business and Chief Revenue Officer, OYO Global, and at Pristyn Care as the Chief Business Officer. 

The startup has 120 members including 70 central team members, 15 veterinarians and other clinical staff. 

Yatish Jain (CBO), Ashish Chawla (COO) and Dr Raghubir Mehla (Chief Veterinary Officer) joined the company in October 2022 as part of its core team.

Vetic plans to expand its presence to a total of 35 clinics across Delhi NCR, Bengaluru and Mumbai regions by December 2023. Over the next two years, it aims to service more than five lakh pets. In addition to this, Vetic will launch multiple online services including quick commerce for pet food and online consultation.