Rover, a dog-walking and dog-boarding service that merged with DogVacay at this time last year, is now the second of these startups this year to raise a new massive wave of financing with its $ 155 million financing announcement.
While competitor Wag has become a juggernaut, it seems that there is room for a second player and the ability to foil Wag despite his massive influx of capital. Both DogVacay and Rover had a very similar model and eventually merged into a stock agreement, creating a more substantial competitor for Wag. The round included a $ 125 million equity financing led by funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, with a $ 30 million credit facility with Silicon Valley Bank. The Wall Street Journal reports that the ride values Rover at $ 970 million.
Wag earlier this year picked up $ 300 million in a massive funding round run by SoftBank. That was, of course, SoftBank – which invests heavily in start-up capital and roughly modifies the calculation of venture capital in the process. But he also reported a huge interest in various dog care services, including apparently Rover, as a potential business opportunity for the millions of dog owners around the world. If you are going to walk anywhere in San Francisco, you will be meeting a very large number of very good dogs, and it is quite logical that there is an opportunity to capitalize on the possession of dogs as a whole .
Rover connects dog owners with a variety of users who will walk, board, or generally look after dogs – an essential service for anyone who may be traveling, or simply working in an unsuitable office to the dogs. Users book a walker dog or babysitter through the app, which connects them with sitters in the area. This is an area where Wag has faced a lot of criticism following a major Bloomberg report regarding bad service (and loss of dogs). There are, of course, many challenges for any service that delivers a kind of daily need to a third party starting in the same way as Uber.
Rover, remarkably, notes on his website that he "accepts less than 20% of potential users", perhaps a critical pit for Wag or space in general and as an attempt to alleviate the concerns of potential users. Rover says he has more than 200,000 people in North America. The company has already raised $ 156 million, and previous investors include A-Grade Investments, Foundry Group, Madrona Venture Group, Menlo Ventures, OMERS Ventures, Petco and StepStone Group.