AI veterinary platform Barkibu raises $5.6 million
Spanish pet telemedicine startup Barkibu has raised $5.6 million in a funding round led by TheVentureCity, MundiVentures, CDTI Innvierte, and Barkibu’s co-founders, with participation from Leap Venture Studio, which is composed of Kinship and the Michelson Found Animals Foundation, with support from R/GA Ventures.
Founded in 2015, Barkibu offers pet owners a range of pet health services, from a 24/7 AI-powered veterinary assistant that allows pet owners to figure out if their pet needs medical attention, to a remote access to licensed veterinarians, and a fully comprehensive coverage through pet insurance and prevention plans. Barkibu has an insurance partnership with Munich Re.
The company has built an extensive AI-learning model, based on a library of 800,000+ answered consultations, to provide the “first truly personalized” view of pets’ health. It does so by aggregating data on pets’ health based on consultations made by pet parents on its mobile app, as well as on insurance claims from veterinary clinics. The funding will allow Barkibu to accelerate the expansion of its AI veterinary platform, broaden the list of symptoms it can interpret via its AIVet function (available globally) and increase its base of pet health insurance customers beyond Spain into new European markets.
“Our AI-driven telehealth reduces the operational costs of insurance and provides proprietary data to optimize insurance pricing and marketing. At the same time, we use the data from insurance claims to validate and train our AI.” – Barkibu’s co-founder Pablo Pazos.
“With so many people choosing to get a pet during lockdown, pet healthtech is on the rise. Because pet owners don’t see the expenses as optional, the industry is considered to be recession proof, and it will thrive despite the current economic dip we are witnessing.” – Laura Gonzalez-Estefani, founder and CEO of TheVentureCity.
“In the current low touch environment, Barkibu brings peace of mind to every pet owner from the comfort of their home.” – Rajeev Singh-Molares, Founder and Managing Partner of Mundi Ventures.
