Deepika Padukone Backed Pet Care Marketplace Supertails Raises $10 Mn Funding

Pet-care marketplace Supertails has secured $10 Mn in Series A funding round in a mix of equity and debt. The $9 Mn equity funding has been led by Fireside Ventures while Alteria Capital led the $1 Mn debt round. 

Existing investors – Saama Capital and DSG Consumer Partners, and angel investors including CRED’s Kunal Shah, Genesis Luxury’s Sanjay Kapoor, MamaEarth’s Varun Alagh, CureFoods’ Ankit Nagori and The Whole Truth Foods’ Shashank Mehta also participated in the funding round.

In the last couple of years, around 95% of the young Indian demographic, including gen Z and millennials, have become first-time pet owners. Most of these people do not have the right means to raise pets, said Varun Sadana, cofounder of Supertails. 

To address the needs of first-time pet owners, Sadana, Aman Tekriwal, and Vineet Khanna founded Supertails in 2021. The startup manages an online petcare-focussed ecommerce marketplace that offers pet supplies, online vet consultations and online pet training across India. 

It is pertinent to note that the three founders had earlier worked with D2C unicorn Licious. Sadana was cofounder and COO of Licious, whilst Tekriwal and Khanna worked as a CFO and led SVP Operations, respectively, according to their LinkedIn profiles.  

The startup plans to use the fresh capital to build its tech infra, launch its mobile app and expand its newly launched D2C brand Henlo (currently sells a diet enhancer for dogs). It will also deploy funds to expand its offerings, strengthen logistics and post-sale experience.

Including the current fundraising, the startup has raised $12.5 Mn to date. Back in 2021, it had secured $2.6 Mn in its Pre-Series A funding round. It counts Bollywood actor Deepika Padukone, Titan Capital and Whiteboard Capital, among its investors.

Strengthening Rapports With Pet Owners

Supertails believes that India does not have a pet-centric ecosystem. As a result, trivial doubts and questions of first-time pet owners are often left unanswered.

To resolve this, the twenty month-old startup has introduced the concept of ‘pet relationship manager’ wherein an executive will understand the requirements of pet owners and accordingly, assign them a pet nutritionist, veterinary doctor or pet behaviorist.

“Based on pet owners’ needs, a pet relationship manager will immediately connect them to  experts who are our in-house vets and behavior experts. This service has helped build the trust of pet owners in our platform Supertails,” said Tekriwal. 

India’s pet care market is pegged at INR 74,000 Cr in 2022 and is further estimated to become an INR 210K Cr space by 2032. According to a report, the industry is expected to report a 19.2% CAGR by 2032. 

In the petcare space, Supertails asserted that it competes with about 3,500 pet-specific stores in the offline market, whilst in the online petcare segment, it competes with the likes of JustDogs and Heads Up For Tales. In the D2C segment, it competes against the likes of DogSpot, Nuts Over Mutts and Dogsee Chew, among others.

With the fresh funding, the startup aims to launch more product lines under its D2C brand Henlo and also, expand new categories including an online pet pharmacy in the coming months. It claims to have clocked an annualised revenue rate of INR 50 Cr in the last 18 months and targets to achieve an annualised revenue of INR 100 Cr by March 2023.

The startup said that it has partnered with over 200 brands including Dogsee Chew, Royal Canin and Orijen, among others and currently manages a base of 100K customers. It further asserted that it has offer over 20K online vet consultations to its customers so far.