The origin stories of many pet startups we've worked with run the gamut from trying to help an ailing pet to experimenting with the combination of seemingly disparate industries.
But one thing unites them all; a great idea is often born out of harvesting the specialised knowledge that the founder has. Unique experience is a great seed for a revolutionary idea. 

In the case of today’s founder, Michael White, it was a background in selling veterinary incubators—the warm box that farmers use to keep eggs warm—that sprouted the idea for an all-encompassing software assistant that could transform how breeders manage their businesses. Breedera wouldn’t exist without the White family’s years of experience in the breeding industry and Michael’s innovative mind. 

So how did Breedera come to be? This is their story.

 

 

An experiment gone right

The 2020 pandemic brought losses and opportunities to many pet businesses, but Michael White’s family business was soaring. This was a shock to them, but the poultry business was oddly flourishing, as was the breeding industry as a whole due to the increased demand for pets. Despite the ethical challenges that came with it, greater demand also enabled greater opportunity for innovation.

Having grown up in the family enterprise of selling veterinary incubators, Michael White saw it all. Breeders of all kinds—feline, canine, and poultry (their main clientele)—would buy their neonatal incubators and muse about their struggles. 

This sparked multiple startup ideas, from chicken-hatching trackers to physical inventions, to aid the incubation process. All of which didn’t quite take off as Mike had hoped.
But a new opportunity would arise when the world slowed down in 2020; he noticed that breeders were predominantly using makeshift homemade solutions to track their litters’ weights.

Michael White, founder of Breedera, said:
“In every other walk of life, there is all this tech at your fingertips. But for breeders, there wasn’t a digital solution for all the paperwork. They were scrambling around trying to hack their own solutions together. That’s how I got my idea for Breedera.”

 

Imagine it. A digital solution to relieve breeders of their DIY trackers to help them make their processes more efficient and streamlined.

The first prototype of the Breedera software, then named PuppyFat, was introduced to a small group of breeders to get their thoughts. When they tried out the product and asked if they could share it with their colleagues, Mike knew he was onto something. He then invested the first £2,000 to get the neonatal weight tracking app developed and ready to sell. And fortunately, it didn’t take long to make that back.

Through word of mouth, PuppyFat grew a loyal and ardent consumer base of early adopters who all had suggestions for new features and improvements. But to make pet tech startups work, you need the resources and support to get ahead of the curve. 

So it was fortuitous that Mike went to a local coworking group for founders and heard about the Unleashed by Purina programme.

Unleashing potential

Breedera was accepted into the Unleashed by Purina programme class of 2021. Their main focus was simple: market research. 

Market research is a key part of the Unleashed by Purina accelerator programme as understanding your market is how you evolve your product. For the Breedera team, speaking to breeders showed how the software could be much bigger than just a weight tracker. Mike said:

“I realised that the roadmap needed to be bigger. We had returning customers saying it was brilliant for tracking weights, but they’d also like it to track vaccines, wormings, flea and tick treatments, and so on. So I started to get this big list of feature requests.”

This led to the shift from neonatal weight tracker to an all-encompassing software assistant for breeders. The Breedera platform now tracks:

• Heat cycles
• Temperature for whelp dates
• Neonatal growth
• Vaccines
• Health visits and treatments
• Feeding routines
• Mating partner details
• New owner waitlis

Another major shift during the programme was the rebrand from PuppyFat to Breedera. Although PuppyFat is a clever name if you're British (“puppy” linking to dog breeding, “fat” referring to weight tracking, and “PuppyFat” being the British term of endearment for extra baby chubbiness), it doesn't quite translate internationally. The Breedera brand was also more capable of serving breeders other than dog breeders.

As the programme was so fruitful for the plucky startup, Mike took his opportunity on Graduation day to pitch to the Unleashed by Purina Business incubator; an invitation-only programme focused on strengthening the partnership with Purina and building upon the results from the accelerator programme. They were accepted and continue to work closely with the Unleashed by Purina team to establish Breedera as the breeders’ voice brand in the pet sphere. This has been a fruitful endeavour on both sides. Mike said:

“The biggest win for me has been the fame. I don't mean personal fame, I mean the fame of Breedera. In the pet-care space, we're famous as the go-to company to connect with breeders and that’s all thanks to Unleashed by Purina’s endorsement. Their name carries so much weight in the pet industry. It opened the doors to investors, partnerships, and opportunities, like the Westminster Dog Show. That has been amazing for connecting to other pet businesses and growing the Breedera brand.”

 

Bringing breeding processes into the 21st century

As a predominantly bootstrapped company, Breedera has seen great success with almost 5,000 monthly active users in 91 countries worldwide. The team onboards around 6-10% more users each month leading to the user base more than doubling in the last two years.

Many users rate the app highly, with most breeders citing word of mouth as the primary reason for signing up.

But this success has not come without its challenges.

As the breeding industry is one of the oldest subsets of the pet industry at large—at least 10,000 years old if we’re just talking about dog breeding—it's no small feat to try and find technological solutions to bring it into the 21st century. 

This is what Mike had this to say when it comes to introducing technology into the mix:

“The adoption curve is so much faster for a technology like AI. If a company takes years and years to develop an AI-integrated app, they’ll lose the race. But what about dog breeders? Their tech is pen, paper and a whiteboard on the wall. A lot of them are very self-confessed tech-phobic, so they don't adopt new tech as quickly.”

As pen and paper are still the overwhelming choice for tracking heat cycles, pregnancies and litters, it can be tricky to convert many traditional breeders to a digital solution. Introducing new processes in the breeding industry as a whole is slow, but the more measured growth of Breedera has enabled the team to have a closer relationship with the breeders they serve. 

Moving the messaging from creating joy to lessening pesky paperwork has been a key shift in attracting new users. Mike said:

“What I actually found was that our mission in this isn't to provide the joy. That comes from their passion for bringing new puppies into the world. Instead, our mission is to provide relief from the burdens, overwhelm, calming the chaos, and making it so that they can, crucially, get back to their pride and passion. There's a serious amount of pride in the work of breeders. We found that a general dislike of paperwork transcended across the pure breed and mixed breed worlds as well. Because we serve both customers, I’m glad we discovered a mission that includes both.”

Having a rootsy, bootstrapped ethos to the brand has also helped its organic growth. In many ways, Breedera has felt like a crowdfunded startup with an intimate connection with its users and a direct feedback loop that continues to make the product better. 

Staying close to breeders has meant more boots-on-the-ground marketing strategies too, like exhibiting at international pet industry events such as Crufts UK and the Westminster Dog Show in New York.

By working with talented freelancers, the team has remained agile and flexible which ensures that Breedera has maintained steady cash flow since its inception. This is an impressive feat in a market that is famously tech-phobic.

What's next for Breedera?

As the features get more sophisticated and the software becomes easier to use, Breedera has grown in kind, ready to become the leading, breeding management solution in the world. 

But while Mike and the Breedera team work to convert breeders to the more efficient, technological path, another opportunity has presented itself. 

Mike’s unique ability to connect with the breeders they have already reached gives Breedera a unique spot in the industry as a conduit between pet brands and breeders. Mike explains:

“If you can get inside the heads of the people who actually create the pet market that we're all in, that has got to be powerful. Now, if you can get those people who create the market to be advocates of your pet brand, it's even more powerful. Breeders have such influence with new owners.”

Breedera are therefore fostering new partnerships with brands within the pet world who want a closer relationship with breeders. Beyond the connection with Unleashed by Purina, Breedera has partnered with pet insurance companies Rainwalk Pet Insurance in the US, PetPlan Pet Insurance in the UK, and ZigZag worldwide. There are other exciting partnership conversations happening as we speak. Mike talks about how Breedera anticipate future collaborations:

“We're working towards this ability to get in front of the breeders, and then put the pet brand in front of the breeders at the right time in their journey. And this is how we've managed to attract other potential collaborations too.”

With unprecedented data and insights into the breeding industry, Breedera can help brands gain access to a subsect of our industry that can be impenetrable.

Though Mike mentioned that he believes the breeding industry would have eventually reached a digital solution, Breedera has sped up that process for the better. They’re also providing invaluable insight into the space that could shift the way pet businesses interact with the professionals who create the pet market—breeders. As we continue to see them stake their claim in the industry, we can't wait to see what Breedera do next. 

Written by Olivia De Santos, Pet Tech Writer @ Unleashed by Purina.