Best in Show Spotlight

Fifteen companies handpicked by our prestigious selection committee showcase their innovations on the mainstage of the
summit. Each company will give a three-minute pitch followed by a quick-fire round of questions from the selection committee.

Full Name
Mx Rowan Sanderson
Job Title
CNO
Company
Bella & Duke
Rowan Sanderson

Dogs deserve to thrive, not just survive and they deserve a company that puts their health and lives before profit. That’s where our natural raw food comes in.  Our goal is simple, to bring your pet the very best in nutrition. That’s it. We will only add an ingredient if it improves the nutritional value of our food. Simply high-quality cuts of meat, making up a minimum of 80%, select veg and berries and healthy fats. Our food is free from fillers, grains, and gluten.  Let’s guarantee a future where our pets can eat as nature intended, ensuring longer, happier, and healthier lives for our best friends.  There’s so much new scientific evidence coming out that contradicts what we’ve been told about what is healthy and what is not.  We promise to stay at the cutting edge of nutrition and continue developing our food so it is as good as it possibly can be. We will never add something to our meals because it might be a good idea and guarantee that every single ingredient, we add to our food provides a real benefit to your dog’s health.  Part of this improvement process involves listening to our customers. We want them to join our Bella & Duke Pack and tell us all about where we’re doing well and where we need to improve. Together we can create a new food that will keep your four-legged friend healthy and ensure you can stay together for as long as possible!

Hope4myPet is the first digital platform to implement virtual tools for clinical trials in companion animals. We use a pet-centric or a decentralized trial concept to increase accessibility, pet enrollment and pet retention in clinical trials.  Decentralized trials offer many advantages for patients as they drastically reduce the scheduling and travel burden of pets and expand the access of the study that would have been unavailable under more traditional trials protocols. We connect pets to trials on a global scale making clinical studies easier for pet-parents, veterinarians and research community. In human drug development for example, a study evaluated approximately 4,000 phase II and phase III trials, patient-centric trials took an average of four months to recruit 100 participants, versus seven months for a traditional trial. The study also found that drugs developed using patient-centric designs were 19 percentage points more likely to be launched, compared to non-patient-centric trials (87% versus 68%).  Veterinary pharmaceutical companies are the target customers for Hope4myPet, our service is provided in a monthly based agreement and an extra enrollment fee. Hope4myPet works with veterinary community around the research site to increase referral rate, conducts virtual enrollment and collects electronic consent form. We keep pet-parents engaged using our a home-monitoring system collecting information directly from pet-parents, such as adverse events, health information and vital signs.

Full Name
David Barroso
Job Title
Co Founder & COO
Company
Findster Technologies
David Barroso

Findster is a tech-enabled provider of Pet Care that ensures the well-being and safety of each pet through its Human+AI Vet and a GPS pet tracker. Using our proprietary technology, our devices monitor pets’ location, health, & activity and use that data to give proactive health insights to pet owners directly on their smartphone. We have one of the largest databases of pet health in the industry with 14K active pets and 14M hours of data collected to train our proactive insights.

Project Blu converts a range of polluting materials into top-quality pet accessories including beds, collars, leashes and harnesses. The raw materials in our designs include ocean-bound plastic, discarded fishing nets, recycled leather and textiles.  Most recently the team has developed a new innovative leather alternative made from discarded apple skins. Not only is the product better for the environment, it is also stronger than traditional leather. The leather industry is one of the most harmful industries on our plant and Project Blu is on a mission to deliver positive change for pets, people and the planet.  Since officially launching in May 2019, Project Blu has sold over 80,000 products across the globe. Their work has converted over 6 million plastic bottles into sustainable designs and they have picked up a number of design and sustainability awards.  The company was recently named the ‘Best Start-up in Wales’ 2020 and has received the backing from Mars inc, R/GA Ventures and Michelson Found Animals as part of the LEAP Ventures Studio.  After COVID related delays Project Blu will be launching in the US in January 2021 alongside our strategic partners Metamorphosis.

Companion develops technology that automatically trains dogs to high levels using machine learning, robotics, computer vision, and state of the art reward-based training. Our products create high-quality solutions to the most pressing dog training and welfare issues for professional working dog businesses, boarding facilities, trainers and consumers. The Companion team includes world-class technologists, animal welfare experts, researchers, and entrepreneurs. We’ve partnered with the SF SPCA, Google, and top tier venture investors to bring a new category of products to the world.

Jiminy's makes dog food that is delicious, nutritious, humane & truly sustainable.  What makes it sustainable?  It’s made with cricket protein! A sustainable superfood using less land, water and feed than traditional protein. Jiminy’s nourish your pet & promote long-term stewardship of the earth.  

 

PetHub's goal is to be the one place you go to manage your pet's life when it comes to tracking their information, searching for trusted services & products, and finding helpful articles at all critical stages. A freemium model, pet owners find high-value in Basic services and greater value at the Premium level for a nominal recurring fee. We help protect 4-legged family members, share their data safely, and nurture them throughout their lives.

PetPanion makes pet healthcare simple and fun by offering personalised subscription plans that include preventative care, digital consultations and rewarding pet insurance, with free smart devices (i.e. activity tracker, food bowl, water fountain) feeding real-time data to our intelligent pet health platform. Imagine Babylon + Vitality but for pets!

ClueJay (ClueJay.com) is an innovative, diagnostic platform of on-demand pet health tests mailed from the comfort of home. It is the initial brand launch of Maranda LLC. ClueJay let’s pet parents collect & mail the fecal test from home without the vet visit cost and stress. It’s easy, convenient, affordable. Pet owners can share electronic report with their vet. Test kits will be available for purchase online, in-store, and through local pet service providers. ClueJay will be the market leader of vet approved diagnostics from home, providing consumers with new DIY control over professional grade pet health tests. Our market penetration begins with a product set of stool (fecal) tests for dogs and cats. The scope of the portfolio will then expand with many new test offerings.

C4 (exploreC4.com) is a design and technology company based in Norcross, GA.  It designs, makes and markets niche products for pets and their human parents.  The company designs and prints-on-demand products such as personalized dog collars and matching accessories (leashes, belts, socks and custom Apple watch bands) and custom pet portraits (sister company www.mypoochface.com).  C4 sells direct to consumer through its company-owned website (75% of sales), Amazon store and drop ships for a dozen third party e-Commerce retailers including Mossy Oak, QVC, Dover Saddler and TABcom.  C4 also wholesales to ad spec customers (promotional products) and to retailers looking to enhance their in-store customer experience with emotionally charged high quality personalized products.  Each order is printed-on-demand and shipped next business day. With the largest catalog of exclusive designs on-line and its ability to personalize their products for each customer, C4 offers a differentiated and compelling value proposition in the marketplace.

Full Name
Jessica Schleder
Job Title
CEO
Company
Adoptimize
Jessica Schleder

Adoptimize creates technology to make it easier for animal shelters and rescues to save lives. Together, we can catalyze the end population-based euthanasia in the US.

Full Name
Dr Joe Inglis
Job Title
VetChef Founder & Head Vet
Company
VetChef
Joe Inglis

Created by Dr Joe Inglis, veterinarian, nutrition expert and founder of tails.com, VetChef is revolutionising pet feeding by making it easy for pet parents to feed healthy home-made food with a smart recipe app and connected kitchen pet food maker. Buddy, the VetChef patent-pending pet food maker, takes all the hassle out of making fresh pet food, and the VetChef app creates bespoke recipes designed to provide optimum nutrition for each individual dog.

Since founding in March 2020, Joe and the VetChef team have built an MVP web app, developed the Buddy pet food maker to working prototype stage, and created a range of nutritional supplements. This progress has been enabled by a pre-seed funding round of £150k in October 2020, and the company is planning a larger seed round to enable the full launch of the pet food maker and web app in early 2021.

VetGuardian™ continuously gathers a patient’s pulse, temperature and respiration rate with no physical contact. Live readings and video feeds are displayed on any mobile platform, allowing the freedom to track hospitalized patients even from non-clinic settings. VetGuardian provides the only end-to-end solution for veterinarians that value freedom and ease-of-use. It is the only monitoring platform for post-surgery and overnight applications.

Full Name
Lizz Whitacre
Job Title
Founder & CEO
Company
Pawlytics, PBC
Lizz Whitacre

Pawlytics strives to make the best technology accessible to any size organization.This means building our software in modules to ensure your non-profit only pays for what you need, and not for what you don’t.  Our goal is to create insanely innovative animal rescue software that contributes to no-kill. To accomplish this, we study our aggregated rescue data and create smart features using machine learning models. Delivering features that can make a difference in saving more animals are at the forefront of our company.  At the heart of Pawlytics, is our love of data and learning about how to save more animals efficiently. We promise to always provide free data analysis of our findings back to the community. We would love you to join us in the learning!