Small Door, a veterinary technology company that integrates best practices in medical advances and hospitality, announced it has raised $3.5 million in seed funding. Lerer Hippeau co-led this round of funding with Primary Venture Partners. And the company also received a co-investment from Brand Foundry Ventures.
Founded a year ago by CEO Josh Guttman and president Florent Peyre, Small Door started as a Public Benefit Corporation and identifies the animals they treat and the veterinarians they employ as “key stakeholders.”
“We started Small Door because we love our pets and believe they deserve a higher quality of care than most current practices deliver,” said Guttman in a statement. “The market for pet healthcare makes up more than a third of the $75 billion Americans will spend on their pets in 2019. Yet, the typical general practice veterinary experience is stuck in an earlier era. For pet owners, this makes going to the vet a chore. For industry workers, it leads to low morale or worse, as evidenced by the mental health epidemic among the veterinary profession. Small Door is going to change all of this with a reimagined experience,”
Guttman also explained that the company felt the patients and veterinarians needed to be at the center of this endeavor. And the animals were included to ensure that they always do what is in their best interest as a first principle. Plus veterinarians were included because they believe their skills have been undervalued in the market amid the recent wave of corporatization.
“Small Door is seizing the opportunity to build a better veterinary experience from the ground up using modern technology and customer-centric principles. Between the brand and product, we believe Small Door is creating a 10x experience that pet owners will love and widely recommend,” added Lerer Hippeau partner Graham Brown.
The team of veterinarians that work at Small Door is trained at the top veterinary programs in the U.S. and Europe. And many of them have completed internships at some of the most well-recognized specialty hospitals and have extensive experience in the field. Then these doctors will further their training upon joining Small Door with a uniquely designed continuing education program.
With a Small Door membership, each member will have 24/7 access to their medical team through a mobile app and a personalized approach for managing their pet’s health that guides them through nutrition and lifestyle choices in conjunction with diagnostics, imaging, prescription medications, and priority access to specialists. The specialists provide everything patients may need including leading orthopedic surgeons and board-certified oncologists.
“Small Door provides a superior customer experience across the board: skilled doctors focus on getting pets well and keeping them well, advanced diagnostic testing and effective monitoring, no wait time, on-demand messaging, and all your pet’s health data in a single accessible place,” noted Ben Sun of Primary Venture Partners.
Some of the individuals who participated in this round also include Flatiron Health co-founders Nat Turner and Zach Weinberg, Warby Parker co-founders Neil Blumenthal and Dave Gilboa and Sweetgreen co-founders Jonathan Neman, Nathaniel Ru, and Nicolas Jammet.
In the same announcement, Small Door unveiled its team of founding advisers, including Dr. Tom X Lee (One Medical Group co-founder), Dr. Richard Park (CityMD co-founder), Martin Tiveus (former Evidensia CEO), and Dr. Douglas Palma (Animal Medical Center). Small Door has been registered as a B Corporation so it adheres to a high standard of ethical and corporate social responsibility.
“Having recently adopted a puppy in our family, we saw firsthand how opaque the industry operates and were surprised by how difficult it was to get the relevant information we wanted as new pet parents. With Small Door, we are modernizing the veterinary experience and bringing it on par with the latest innovations in human healthcare management,” Peyre acknowledged.
With the funding round, Small Door is planning to support new hires, build out virtual and digital offerings, and construct veterinary practices that set a new standard for the industry.
