BENGALURU : With the aim to build a community that cares and helps four-leg furries and their owners in need, ‘PetKonnect’, a pet and animal service startup is offering a wide array of facilities for pets. Founded by Devanshi Shah, PetKonnect was started in 2019, after she spoted a gap in the pet care services in India during an emergency health scare that her five-year-old Havanese pup, Hazel, faced. “At that point I realised the lacunas in the animal care sector. It took this grave loss to open my eyes to the fact that something needs to be done to plug the gap. This venture is my ode to Hazel. While I felt so helpless in my feeble attempts to save her, I decided to channelise my grief through this start up,” says Shah.
Available as an app and through their website, the features include ‘Social Petwork’, ‘My Pets’, ‘Emergency’, ‘Pet Affairs’, ‘Service Providers’, ‘Pet Affairs’. While Social Petwork is a platform for pets that enables users to identify pets around them through their geo-tagged locations, the emergency section allows users to reach out to partner NGOs/ ambulance taxis that provide on-the-spot treatment to strays.
The ‘Pet Affairs’ section is where users are given access to relevant content, including articles, training, food and health tips. “Our strength lies in reducing the time spent in managing your pet’s life so you and your fit furry have more time to play,” says Shah.
The hardest part of setting up the space was developing a website and app with high-quality code. “The pet and animal service sector is a highly disorganised one. Identifying and getting together participants to work together with our platform has been a mammoth task,” said Shah.
For this self-funded venture, Shah has spent over Rs 10 lakh, and hopes to get into her first round of funding soon. In addition, over the next year, Shah is looking to expand the networks to other cities, starting with New Delhi and Hyderabad.
PetKonnect
Founded by Devanshi Shah in 2019 to provide a loving, safe and sanitary environment for pets
Startup enable pet parents with the easy management of their pets through a single platform
PetKonnect offers features like ‘Social Petwork’, ‘My Pets’, ‘Emergency’, ‘Pet Affairs’, ‘Service Providers’, and ‘Pet Affairs’
For this self-funded venture, Devanshi Shah has spent over Rs 10 lakh to build brand’s operation and technical framework
The services on the platform are free currently
Future plans include expanding to other cities, including New Delhi and Hyderabad, next year