Marketplace for “holiday pet sitting” raises $10m to spread the love, alpacas included
IMAGINE you’re leaving for a holiday and you don’t know what to do with your pets – be they lizards, snakes, dogs, cats, goats or even alpacas? You’d rather not leave them at a boarding place (who knows what they are like and how your animals will behave) and besides, you may have 40 alpacas that may not fit anywhere.
Well, you could go to Trusted Housesitters, a world where pet care and travel comes together and which offers “holiday pet sitting, with love”.
It’s not exactly a new business. The UK-based business was founded in 2010 but it was only in 2019 when travel veteran Mathew Prior invested into the business, took over as CEO and promptly raised $10m in Series A funding in 2021 to give it “more firepower” that the business is getting serious attention.
In fact, after Prior made his presentation to a group of “dragons” at Phocuswright Europe, saying he was now looking to raise Series B, Chris Hemmeter, managing director of Thayer Ventures, the travel and transportation fund, said, “Count me in.”
Mathew Prior: “We have an even stronger proposition in the post-pandemic world, people have fallen in love with pets and with the rebound in travel, especially ethical travel, the stars are aligned.”
Prior, who was managing director tailormade and marine for Travelopia and prior to that, Crystal Ski, recognised the opportunity when he came across the business in 2019. He told WiT, “It’s an incredible proposition to create something genuinely new in travel and I saw an opportunity to disrupt. This ticks all the boxes, even more so after the pandemic – unique experiences, authentic adventures, ethical travel, remote working, affordable travel.” (The founders remain non-executive directors in the business.)
And while you would think investing in it in 2019 was bad timing because travel came to a standstill soon after that, it was in fact the best of timing, said Prior. Animal ownership rose, increasing the market opportunity, and member loyalty and retention was high during the pandemic.
“It had been bootstrapped since founding and had good adoption and growth but since the pandemic, it’s seen rapid growth. We saw high loyalty and retention during the pandemic. When we went into the pandemic, 50% of revenues came from existing members and 50% came from new members.”
And while it didn’t acquire new members during the pandemic, existing members carried on with their subscriptions and used the service widely, he said. It currently has 100,000 members paying an annual fee of 129 Euros for unlimited usage.
Prior said the service has seen four million nights of pet sitting and has $20 million in revenues, with 90% gross margins.
With careful management of costs – its staff count is 75, Prior said the business didn’t need any extra funding the past two years, managing to break event. It was only at the start of 2021 when it saw a turnaround with a pick-up in business in the US that it decided to seek Series A funding.
“We have an even stronger proposition in the post-pandemic world, people have fallen in love with pets and with the rebound in travel, especially ethical travel, the stars are aligned,” said Prior.
The service uses real-time analytics and predictive models, real-time messaging and alerting and peer-to-peer review system to find the best match between owner and sitter.
Asked what happens when something goes wrong, Prior said there’s insurance on both sides – sitter and owner. “Most commonly, what goes wrong is when expectations are not matched around cleanliness or care.”
According to Prior, 100 million households in the US and UK now have pets and 47% of pet parents find it harder to leave their pets for a week, than their parents.
Prior, who owns two black Labradors himself, said most of the pets in Trusted Housesitters are dogs and cats, and occasionally chickens and birds. Once, he recalled, an owner was looking for someone to housesit 40 alpacas and found a match.
Its 100,000 members are split roughly 40% in the US, 30% in the UK, 10% Australia and the rest come from 120 or so countries. Its members in places such as Singapore, Hong Kong and Thailand are mainly expatriates residing in these places. “Our objective now is to raise awareness. A lot more people deserve to know about our service,” said Prior.
Featured image: Trusted Housesitters
