The Indian Pet Industry is brimming with confidence. We have yet another good news. Just Dogs, a pet speciality retail got US$7M funding from Sixth Sense Ventures.
Pet space is a US$ 200B market globally larger than established FMCG segments like baby-care and oral-care. While the US is the largest market at US$72B+, penetrated at 65%, India is still a very nascent US$500 Mn market at just 6% penetration and sub 10% commercial food presence. With 30Mn pets and the 5th largest dog population in the world, the nascent Indian pets industry is at the brink of experiencing exponential growth.
Just Dogs is a first mover in the Indian pets industry and the largest omnichannel retailer for pet products and services catering to ~ 1.5 lac customers. With a pan-India presence across 42 stores, Just Dogs is a one-stop shop for lifetime needs of pets. The chain is the largest retailer and port of first call for major global brands like Pedigree, Royal Canin, Purina to name a few. Just Dogs will use the funding towards creating a full stack online experience for the pet parent and for expansion of offline stores.
Just Dogs has been profitably bootstrapped over ten years by the husband-wife team of Ashish and Poorvi Anthony. Ashish, CEO of Just Dogs, is a trained K9 specialist from the Police Dog Center, Holland and is a seasoned professional, having spent 17 years at companies such as Shell, Unilever, ICICI, and Barclays. Ashish, later channelled his passion for dogs into building the brand Just Dogs. Poorvi leads the marketing, branding, training and franchising at Just Dogs.
“With over 30Mn pets, the Indian pet industry is just coming of age, becoming the fastest growing pet market in the world. There has been an evolution from dog owners to a rising number of pet parents who treat pets as their children, leading to informed consumers graduating towards higher quality, premium products. This is creating a large opportunity for the company to capture. Super excited to have the Sixth Sense team – Nikhil Vora & Nimisha Nagarsekar as part of our journey, their astute consumer expertise will truly help catalyse growth momentum for Just Dogs to dominate the pet-care market”, said Ashish Anthony, Founder & CEO, Just Dogs.
Nikhil Vora, Founder and CEO, Sixth Sense Ventures said, “Pets is a highly underpenetrated market, with a 8-15 years lien on the customer and a premium lifetime value! Being a first mover, Just Dogs has a clear edge to create a full stack engagement brand by leveraging on its omni channel presence, clearly a high entry barrier in an otherwise fragmented market. We are extremely excited to partner with Ashish & Poorvi in their entrepreneurial journey to be the brand of choice for the pet parent. Just Dogs falls well within the Sixth Sense thesis of Investing early in scalable underpenetrated categories, catering to the Pet Parent of tomorrow!”
Just Dogs has been awarded the Most Promising Pet Brand and Pet Specialty Retail for 2 years in a row at the Indian Pet Industry Awards, Prestigious Brands Asia by Herald Global in 2021, India’s Retail Champions by Retailers Association of India, under specialty retail category in 2021. They were advised by boutique investment bank Panini on the transaction