VetChip: Smart animal health monitoring - Series A $5-10 million raise

Opportunity for

• Investors (venture capital, family office, angels) interested in investing in an animal health monitoring device
  ^This opportunity is only for professional and sophisticated investors.

Opportunity description

Industry challenge:

With many health issues in pets being silent and unseen, VetChip offers unprecedented levels of health monitoring. The VetChip implant reports an animal's heart rate, temperature, respiratory rate, tissue oxygenation, and stress.

The associated software app utilises this biometric data to detect abnormal health parameters and generate real-time alerts. For example, the early signs of fever, changes in behaviour (lethargy), measures of animal welfare, and metabolic rates can all be determined by our technology.

Thus, at the earliest opportunity the animal owner, farmer or vet is made aware of medical issues that may otherwise be missed, providing better health and welfare outcomes. This is particularly relevant within the developed world, where there is an increasing call for welfare monitoring and assurance, in order to maintain a social license to operate.

Current opportunity:

VetChip's Series A funding round is now open. VetChip conducted a successful seed round in 2021 and has achieved significant technological milestones, culminating in the world's first cloud-connected animals via a subcutaneous microchip, including cattle, sheep, horses, dogs, cats and pigs. After successfully raising $2m in 2021, VetChip is now looking to raise between $5m and $10m.

This funding will enable further minituarisation of the device, improvements to transdermal charging performance, enhanced market access to livestock research organisations worldwide and development of species-specific biological algorithms to enhance data capture and reporting.

Opportunity background:

The VetChip team has been working incredibly hard and have achieved many significant milestones over the last 12 months, including:

• commencing VetChip's pilot phase of the latest clinical trial in September.
• Creating the world’s first subcutaneously implanted cloud-connected animal.

The microchip device is now small enough that implantation is simple and quick – requiring a small amount of local anaesthetic and a skin suture. Further miniaturisation is still important.

An API with a global veterinary practice management software entity has been created, which enables the team to read and write information from an animal’s clinical record. Options to extend this functionality to farm management software are being explored.

Notably, most ‘wearable’ competitors seem to have made little progress with their collar-based technology, which supports VetChip’s stance that effective animal health monitoring cannot be achieved with an external solution alone.

VetChip have previously partnered with Curtin University and currently have a number of major grant applications in the pipeline with them. In accordance with their market entry plan, VetChip has just soft launched into the animal research market. There is still a fair amount of development before launching in the pet, livestock and equine markets, but the technological foundations are solid and the market interest in these sectors is overwhelming.

VetChip has been featured in The West Australian’s 'Top Start-ups to Watch', at Curtin University's Innovation Awards (winner of the international 'Science and Engineering' category) and at the 'West Tech Fest' event in December 2022.