Remeber adopets? Last year, the online platform that streamlines the application process to adopt pets was doing closed beta testing with shelters and organizations throughout Massachusetts, Texas and Missouri. The goal of the company was improving the way shelters and prospective adoptive parents find each other and work with each other during the adoption process, which founder Artur Sousa knows firsthand.
We are a marketplace, but instead of buying things, you are saving lives.
Lots of things have happened since then. According to Sousa, the company launched its beta in November and, after testing and working in 35 U.S. states, decided to go national.
“We have animals available for adoption in any and every state of America as of right now,” Sousa said in a recent interview with BostInno. “Including a few different areas of Canada and a few different areas of Mexico as well.”
During the implementation, the company decided to focus more on the prospective parents rather than the organizations and the shelters. Currently, the platform works as a database of both people who want to adopt a pet and pets available for adoption, with around 280,000 registered animals from 11,000 organizations in the country.
“We are a marketplace, but instead of buying things, you are saving lives,” Sousa said.
Adopets doesn’t own any pet, so the responsibility to abide by the local pet adoption laws - which can be very different from state to state - falls on the shoulders of shelters and rescue organizations around the country.
Based in Medford with a team of seven, the company has been bootstrapping so far and it is planning to raise its first round of funding in the next six months, according to Sousa.
A Mentorship manager at MassChallenge, Sousa pointed out that he and the other members of the team all have full-time jobs besides Adopets. “By doing that way, we didn’t have the desperation for funding, so we could focus on what matters most, which is the adoption itself,” Sousa explained.
