Super excited to announce today that we closed our 4M Series A for tuft paw with a minority stake from Companion Fund, a venture capital fund run by Digitalis Ventures in Partnership with Mars.
It's an exceptionally difficult environment to raise money right now for CPG brands. As one investor put it, "you could be pissing gold coins right now and investors would question if gold coins are worth anything."
When most people hear “Mars” they think of chocolate, but Mars has been a leader in the pet care category for 90 years and their pet care businesses now account for 60% of their business. They were one of the earliest brands in the pet space, acquiring Chapel Brothers pet food in the UK in 1935 at a time when the idea of serving your pets dedicated pet food (versus table scraps) was extremely novel.
Mars is obviously a huge brand, but once upon a time, it was a single founder obsessed with developing an amazing product and running a scrappy startup.
Together Mars and Digitalis Ventures invest in great ideas for advancing animal health at scale. I am SO excited for this next chapter and feel proud to be in such good company. We're a completely independent brand, but their support will help us continue building toward our vision of being the most innovative brand for cats and cat people 🐈