From kibble to clinics: Why pet startups are chasing healthcare

The rationale for this design is to put pets at ease, Vineet Khanna, cofounder of Supertails, told Mint. For an animal, a clinic is an unfamiliar, overwhelming space. “They are very territorial. No pet wants to visit a clinic because their FAS—fear, anxiety, stress—is high. Fear-free principles aim at almost eliminating that,” he said.

The colours, in particular, follow a logic. “Pets cannot see beyond green and blue. If you have a very colourful clinic, it will look very good, but it will also make them anxious. So, all our clinics are built around those two colours,” Khanna explained.

Supertails isn’t the only company redrawing the look and feel of a veterinary clinic. Walk through Bangalore’s upmarket neighbourhoods, such as Koramangala and Indiranagar, and you’ll see other such centres. They sport calm colours, clean lettering, and names you wouldn’t have encountered five years ago, such as Dr Paws, Dr Doodley, and Vetic, to name just three. These clinics epitomize a big shift that is playing out across urban India: the corporatization of veterinary services.

How it began

Until a few years ago, India’s petcare market was a highly fragmented affair, dominated by neighbourhood pet stores, standalone vets and a handful of product brands. That began to change during the covid pandemic, with people across India adopting companion animals.

As pets became more deeply embedded in urban family life, a few startups such as Supertails and Heads Up For Tails emerged, offering products such as food and toys, through ecommerce and other online and offline platforms. Some of these companies attracted venture capital, making the broader category look more attractive.

Many pet owners were also spending huge sums on preventive care, diagnostics and chronic treatment. With these categories offering recurring, high-margin revenue, a clutch of entrepreneurs, such as Khanna (Supertails, 2021), Rakesh Santhapur (Dr. Paws, 2024), Gaurav Ajmera (Vetic, 2022), and Utsav Bisaria (Dr Doodley, 2023), sensed an opportunity and began establishing petcare chains.

“With pet parents seeking medical help even for minor concerns, the demand for reliable and accessible veterinary care grew,” said Santhapur.

The scent of that opportunity also attracted a pack of venture investors, who stepped up with the capital needed to pay for the expensive equipment, prime real estate and skilled vets that the business would need. The cheques are not big, but they have been coming in; recent examples include Venturi Partners leading a $30 million funding round in Supertails; Bessemer Ventures and others infusing $26 million into Vetic; Chiratae Ventures and other backers putting ₹29.3 crore into Dr. Paws; and V3 Ventures leading a ₹30 crore investment into Dr Doodley.

That money is quietly ushering in a transformation in veterinary care across India, and some of those changes are being welcomed universally. For instance, many of these clinics are open 24/7 and pet owners no longer have to wait until the morning to see a vet—when it might be too late—to deal with an emergency.

But there is also a flip side, for pets, pet owners, and independent veterinarians. That side of the coin is detailed in the latter part of this piece.

Why it happened

Pet owners today expect the same seamless, experience-led services they are used to in food delivery, mobility and entertainment. But that is something small clinics cannot really deliver in a sustained manner. Their inability to do so has paved the way for these organized veterinary chains, which promise consistency and convenience, for a price.

The change is somewhat akin to what happened in human healthcare and fitness, where fragmented services were gradually formalised into branded chains. In petcare, too, the bet is that healthcare will become the most important part of the market as the category matures.

The opportunity is also rooted in how underpenetrated the market still is. “Even today, only one in three pets has ever visited a vet,” said Supertails’ Khanna. “India’s compliance with pet vaccination is less than 20%.”

There is a lot of money to be made there. According to figures put out by Euromonitor International, an independent market research provider, India had nearly 40 million pets in 2025. Of that, dogs made up a little over 87%, followed by cats at around 9%, with fish, birds, small mammals and reptiles making up the rest.

According to Ram Soni, partner, food and agriculture at Praxis Global Alliance, the expansion of organized veterinary clinics in India is largely demand-led, “India’s pet population is growing at 9–10% annually, while the broader petcare market is projected to expand from $3.5 billion in 2024 to $7 billion by 2028,” he said.

For startups and investors, that projection signals the scale of the whitespace. Clinics such as Vetic, Dr Doodley and Dr Paws are expanding their networks, while consumer pet brands such as Supertails and Zigly are moving beyond products and ecommerce into veterinary services. Those services include consultations, deworming, vaccination, ultrasound, X-ray and a variety of blood tests, including complete blood count, kidney function, liver function, as well as urine analysis and annual health packages.

A basic consultation at Supertails costs about ₹599, while an annual health check plan covering consultations, deworming and vaccination costs about ₹3,000.

Why VCs love pets

What makes pet healthcare attractive for venture capital is the combination of this large whitespace opportunity and unusually strong early unit economics for offline services. The margins in, particular, make for a compelling case. Industry insiders say that while product margins typically range between 25% and 30%, services can generate margins of 60% and even 90% in some cases.

Moreover, unlike products, healthcare is not easy to disrupt once trust is built. Affluent consumers and those deeply attached to their pets are willing to pay what it takes for better care and outcomes, giving service-led businesses a much stronger moat.

What makes the opportunity more attractive is that, unlike many venture-backed consumer sectors, this is not a business built on deep discounting or prolonged cash burn. Founders say clinics can become profitable relatively early if utilization ramps up as expected.

For Dr. Paws, a clinic typically breaks even by the fourth or fifth month. From there, as footfalls rise and repeat visits build, the numbers improve steadily, with capital expenditure (capex) usually recovered within 20 to 22 months.

The revenue profile also helps explain investor interest. “Unit economics here broadly break into two parts: one is the out-patient department (OPD), which can happen at home, in a clinic or at a hospital, and that typically has an average ticket size of around ₹2,500 to ₹3,000,” said Dr Doodley’s Bisaria. “The other is the in-patient department (IPD), where the pet is admitted (usually for a surgery or critical care), and there the average ticket size rises sharply to around ₹25,000.”

Capital expenditure is still manageable. “The capex per centre is around ₹1.5 crore to ₹2 crore, which is not very high relative to the revenue potential,” Bisaria said. “On average, our centres generate about ₹50 lakh a month, which helps make capex recovery significantly faster. That’s the KPI (key performance indicator) investors look at.”

Investors also find the category attractive because profitability does not depend on one-time spending; it is built on repeat visits, preventive care, pharmacy sales and procedures.

“A well-run urban clinic targeting the premium segment should aim for monthly revenues of ₹15-25 lakh, with payback on clinic fit-out within 18-30 months and steady-state EBITDA margins in the 20-28% range,” said Anant Vidur Puri, partner at Bessemer Venture Partners. With pets visiting a vet three to four times a year on average, even a few hundred loyal customers can support steady monthly revenue, he added.

Challenges aplenty

The opportunity in pet healthcare may be large, but building it is not easy. Unlike a technology business, which can scale up rapidly through software or network effects, veterinary care grows in a far more linear way and revenue is closely tied to physical expansion. Each new clinic adds to the topline, while existing centres improve gradually as utilization rises over time. That makes growth steadier and more predictable, but also slower and harder won.

One of the biggest constraints, however, is talent. India’s pool of trained veterinarians remains limited, especially for companion animal care. “India produces approximately 4,000-5,000 veterinary graduates annually, but only 5% enter companion animal practice. Specialized expertise in areas such as surgery, dermatology, and diagnostics remains limited,” said Praxis’s Soni.

The rest become government veterinarians or take up teaching, research, pharmaceutical and private sector jobs, among others. Mint has not been able to verify if this cohort makes up for 95% of the graduates, as implied by Soni.

Geography poses another challenge. While demand for petcare is growing beyond the biggest cities, the model works best in urban agglomerations where there is enough density to support shared operations and infrastructure within a chain. In smaller cities, demand may well exist for one or two clinics, but not enough to build a large network. Besides, as more startups set up shop in the same affluent neighbourhoods, there is a possibility of oversupply in certain micro-markets.

The premium segment offers the highest per-visit spend, which is why it attracts the most attention. But several founders argue that the market cannot be built by focusing only on a few high-income pockets. “The overall addressable market is far larger than just affluent pockets,” said Vetic Pet Healthcare’s Ajmera. The challenge is to expand beyond those clusters without stretching the model too thin.

Beyond talent constraints, operational execution is a major challenge, according to Soni. “Veterinary services often depend on individual doctor reputation, which makes brand standardization across clinics difficult,” he said.

The high charges can also be daunting for many owners. Pet insurance penetration in India remains extremely low, with less than 1% of pets being insured, limiting affordability for advanced treatments, Soni added.

The flip side

Bengaluru denizen Shalu Chowrasia has experienced every layer of India’s pet-care system, from government hospitals to startup chains, to welfare-focused clinics. On one occasion while she was travelling, Mouse, her kitten, fell ill. A friend took him to Charlie’s, a pet welfare-focused care centre, and came back impressed.

Chowrasia herself did not go to Charlie’s initially. “It was very far from my place, so I tried another clinic for the next visit,” she said. She found the infrastructure to be excellent and the visit, for a vaccination, went smoothly. “But on the next visit, they kept pushing add-ons, a dental drop, then a spray during a neutering consultation, and the costs kept adding up. Charlie’s felt more honest,” she said.

Chowrasia’s basic consultation cost ₹350 at the second clinic and just ₹100 at Charlie’s. “They just know how to handle cats. The second clinic feels private and polished, no smell, everything tucked away neatly. Charlie’s is chaotic and open, animals crying, treatments happening in front of you. But they care more about the animal than anything else,” she said.

Dr Suhas S., who runs SM Pet Clinic in Yelahanka, said the rise of corporate chains, with their heavy online marketing, is putting small clinics like his under immense pressure. He has already seen several neighbourhood clinics shut and walk-ins at his own decline.

“Organized chains often lure customers with low grooming fees or free consultations, but charge significantly more for surgeries and neutering,” he said. Another issue is large chains poaching veterinary talent and paying salaries that small practices cannot match, he added. “If independent clinics disappear, affordability becomes a serious concern for middle-class pet parents,” the young veterinarian said.

Echoing that concern, Shruthi Rathnakar, founder of Leo Charitable Trust, which rescues animals and provides them lifelong care, noted that while startup chains are very professional, they pose an existential threat to the neighbourhood clinics that middle-class pet parents rely on. “If prices rise everywhere because corporates set the benchmark, people will hesitate to rescue animals or seek early treatment,” she said.

The Trust, which plans to open its own clinic soon, currently has nearly 300 dogs, 50 cats, livestock, and even a donkey in its care. It conducts adoption drives to give the animals a second chance. The non-profit is largely self-funded by the trustees, with CSR activity, campaigns and compassionate donors contributing a small amount.

Rathnakar believes that large chains have a role to play, but it should not be to the detriment of small clinics. “We need both systems to survive,” she said.

Given the ambitious expansion plans of the large chains, that may not be easy. Gurugram-based Vetic, which operates about 60 clinics in 11 cities, is in the middle of building its quick commerce and e-pharmacy verticals. Supertails, which currently operates five clinics, plans to take that number to 13 in Bengaluru over the next four months, before expanding the model to at least 10 cities over the next five years.

Chennai-based SKS Veterinary already has 14 clinics in ten cities, while Mumbai-based Crown vet, a relatively older name, also operates pan-India. Dr Paws has five clinics in Bengaluru, with two more set to open in the city next month and another two in Hyderabad in May. Dr Doodley has three clinics in Bengaluru and plans to add three more in the city by June.

The scramble to corner India’s petcare market has begun. The race is no longer just to sell kibble—it is to become the doctor of choice for the family pet. And pet owners will determine who the winner is.