MyDogBuddy goes walkies with €1.9 million expansion funding
- Summary:
- A cross between Tinder and AirBnB for dogs, MyDogBuddy.com proves that the simple ideas are the best as it picks up €1.9m in funding for expansion.
As we supposedly all learned back in the days of dot com madness, it’s not just enough to stick up a website and sit back to wait for the money to pour in. The days of so-called ‘build it and they will come’ have gone the way of Kevin Costner’s career.
The key to success in what we’d now call a digital, rather than a dot com, business is find a genuine need to address and address it. A good case in point is that’s close to home for me is MyDogBuddy.com, which along with Amazon and Ocado is one of the sites I use most weeks.
Founded in 2013 by Richard Setterwall, the basic idea of MyDogBuddy.com is simplicity itself, but addresses a major pain point for thousands of people: who’s going to look after your pooch when you’re busy or away from home?
Where I live in the UK, there are literally hundreds of people advertising dog walking and dog sitting services. Unless one of them comes with a personal recommendation, you take a massive gamble when handing over your canine chum effectively to a complete stranger.
In my city, there is an unfortunately high track record of some very unreliable individuals so when I needed to find a regular sitter for my dog Doodle, I was extremely nervous.
What MyDogBuddy does is act as an online marketplace for reputable dog sitters/walkers in your locality who have been ‘vetted’. You find a sitter who meets your specific needs. I found a lady in the area with a garden and two other dogs, who is at home all day and who has had dogs all her life.
Once you find, a sitter, you make an online reservation and make payment via the website. Your dog is then covered by insurance while in the sitter’s care. And you’re encouraged to assist the rest of the dog owner community by leaving Amazon-style reviews and recommendations for the sitter.
As you can see, it’s not exactly rocket science, like a cross between Tinder and AirBnB for dogs, but for the past year it’s been an invaluable service for me.
That’s clearly true for many others as today the firm has announced it’s merging with its Spanish counterpart Bibulu, backed by €1.9 million in funding from private and institutional investors to support a relaunch as DogBuddy. The combined entity will extend its reach to Italy and Germany as well as the UK and Spain.
Setterwall commented:
It was very natural for us to combine forces – we complement each other very well and have the same vision of creating the highest quality dog service marketplace in Europe.
The merger is a big step towards reaching our goal of providing a safe and convenient way for all dog owners to get access to local dog sitters caring for your dog like a member of their family.
There are a number of similar services operating in the US, so whether that market is in DogBuddy’s sights remains to be seen, such as DogVacay. But with DogBuddy now boasting a marketplace of 10,000 plus verified sitters/walkers, it outscales any of the existing US providers. A nice European success story, then.
My take
The simple ideas are the best.